I don't know how many times (a day) I got asked this question when people started noticing me losing weight this last year. People just assume you eat salad. And if I was on a "diet" that might be the way I would naively go about it. But let me ask you a question. Do you want to be eating salad for every meal for the rest of your life? Heck no! That's why these fad diets NEVER work. It's not something you can maintain long term. Then when you go back to eating "normal" food you gain the wieght back plus X amount of weight. There's a name for it... Refeeding syndrome.
So when people ask me what I eat I say,"everything." It's all in moderation. Bottom line IT CALORIES IN AND CALORIES OUT! You have to eat less calories than you are burning every day. If one pound is 3500 calories then you have to burn around 500 calories more a day than you eat to lose about a pound a week (and double that for about 2 pounds a week). It truely is that simple.
That said if you eat 2000 calories a day in brownies you would be sick, mal nutritioned and hungry all the time, but you probaly wouldn't gain or lose any weight. (Just take my late grandma for example who only ate cheetoes and chocolate pudding for years). So alittle more thought has to go into it.
You ideally want to eat foods that taste good, satify you, and keep you full till the next time you can eat again. That's where EDUCATION comes into play here. You want to combine the right foods to give you the optimum results. Here's just a few things I have learned... let's say TOP 7
1. If it doesn't come from the ground or doesn't have a mother: DON"T EAT IT. aka no processed food, soda,etc.
2. Always try to eat fruit and veggies in their natural state..aka. don't juice. The reasoning behind this is that you are getting larger amounts of sugar and none of the necessary fiber. Your body isn't used to not having solids and might think it's going into a starvation period. (see4.)
3. Eat protein at every meal...even your snack.
4. Eat 3 main meals and one 300 calorie snack... don't eat after 7 pm. (Never skip a meal, and NEVER Fast/cleanse unless for Spiritual or Medical (doctor's orders) reasons.) It distroys your metabolism and makes you GAIN wieght not loss it. Your body goes into starvation mood where it releases cortizon (sp?), and other hormones that are not good for losing weight, your body starts eating muscle (not fat) because it doesn't need muscle to live but it does need fat (energy). Just BAD, BAD, BAD. Don't do it.
5. Eat organic whenever possible... google reasons to eat organic if you are stuggling to understand why. Or read previous post.
6. Never allow you body to be over 1000 calories defict in a day or 7000 calories in a week. (That's for my body size.) Again you don't want your body to think that it's going to go into a period of starvation where it hold onto fat. If you constantly feed your body properly then it will say to itself "I don't need this because I know tommorow I'll get more food (energy to replace it." If you platued you need to eat 500 more calories for one day to let your body know that it's ok to burn that fat.
7. Don't do anything you can't do for the rest of your life. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change. Diets are temporary with temprary results, Life style changes are for a life time and have long term results.
Ok so you might be saying , "JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU EAT ALREADY!" So since I have started counting calories again I have written down every thing I've eaten. So here's a couple of days. By the way I have lost 2 pounds already this week. :)
Tuesday
BREAKFAST
coffee with goat's milk
blueberries and yogurt with a 1/4 orange juice (blueberry are whole not juiced) smootie.
piece of homemade whole wheat bread with a 1/2 tbs. of homemade butter
LUNCH
Subway Turkey Sandwich
POP Chips
mystery cookie (from the stash in the office)
SNACK
grapes (20)
hard-boiled egg
DINNER
Hamburger pattie with Lettuce bun, tad of cheddar cheese and grilled onions (pictured)
Homemade Brownie (Master your Metabolism Cookbook)
TOTAL: 1470 calories
THURSDAY
Breakfast
Coffee with goat's milk
Homemade Whole wheat waffle with a table spoon of organic peanut butter
Lunch
Subway Veggie Sandwich
POP Chips
Brownie
Snack
Organic Apple
Hard boiled egg
Dinner
1/2 Chicken breast (because I wasn't hungry enough for the other half).
Broccoli with a tad bit of cheddar cheese
Chocolate covered frozen banana with coconut oil. (Makes the chocolate into a hard shell
TOTAL: 1500 calories
No comments:
Post a Comment