Avoid the one size fits all diet/exercise mistake.
Avoid the starvation diets – if you are hungry – eat – but control your portions. Eat until you are 3/4 full, or less (1/2 full), and stop. You will be surprized that your hunger and ravaging apetite goes away if you give some time for your stomach to signal your brain.
Eat every few hours for optimum energy levels, fat loss, and weight management.
Cut out ALL sugars, processed foods starchy veggies like wheat, white rice, potatoes, artichokes, chickpeas, ALL GRAINS (or 1x a day at most, preferably after exercise where you torch many of the calories off).
No exercise that day = no grains for optimum weight loss. Why? Grains are very high in starch (and usually way over processed), and contain a lot of anti-nutrients which cause you to lose healthy minerals. We aren’t working on a farm outside anymore, and don’t need all the starchy calories they provide. I encourage you to replace your grains with greens for a while and see not only how your waistline looks, but how you FEEL!
Avoid dairy – without getting into the “health” debate, dairy has a lot of sugars in it.
Limit fruit – fruit is good for you, but often times people are tricked into thinking they are eating healthy when they eat dried or candied fruit. Plus, certain fruits are better for you than others. Many people eat way too much fruit vs. vegetables.
If you REALLY want some great weight loss, try having fruits only every other day, or every 3 days. Replace your serving of fruit with a non-starchy vegetable, and try to cut down on your servings of fruit temporarily, and again replace it with a healthy vegetable.
What to eat:
All veggies and greens except starchy veggies like potatoes, artichokes, Limit Legumes, but still eat them; they are a great fibre and protein – except soy.
All lean meats, and especially wild, smaller fish – Pork is ok occasionally
Healthy oils/fats – Coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, chia seeds, ground flax seed (ie with breakfast meals, with a smoothie, with water before bed).
Unsweetened nut oils/butters other than peanut butter. 1 teaspoon (an actual measuring teaspoon, or 2 silverware teaspoons) of fat at each meal, or ½ medium avocado, etc.
Fruit – The lowest sugar/glycemic index fruits include all berries, cherries, apples and pears, grapefruit, figs, apricots and peaches, as well as rhubarb and cranberries.
Like I mentioned above, don’t go hungry. And if you are feeling tired (you may the first few days – you may want to start this on a Friday or Friday afternoon), add some more healthy fats to the program. You will not get fat eating healthy fats, unless you go crazy and are not limiting your portions. More on portion control in my next post!
Make sure you have a vegetable, protein (ie meat, legumes), and healthy fat at each meal – this helps you digest your food better, and optimizes energy/weight levels.
And, I wanted to include exercise in this post as well. High Intensity nterval training will help melt fat off of you as well, and drastically improve your stamina! The good news? 20-25 minutes in one session is all you need!
