We Hate to Hear It...
But it truly is THIS SIMPLE... you want to lose weight? You have to eat healthy. You can exercise for 3 hours everyday but if you fuel back up on unhealthy food, you'll be a really strong and overweight instead of just overweight. So let's get lean and mean...
When it comes to food, there's not one special diet that works for everyone. There's no healthy shake or pill or drug. Eliminate unhealthy foods and I guarantee (am I allowed to make that claim? Sure why not!), the weight will come off.
The first thing to do: ELIMINATE UNHEALTHY FOOD
I almost fell over once when an athlete told me she had a healthy dinner of BAKED chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. No no noooooo!!! Please don't make me dissect why this is a horribly very not healthy dinner...
So here's what to eliminate RIGHT NOW from your diet:
~processed and packaged foods (like macaroni and cheese!! and chicken nuggets!!)
~refined grains
~sugars and sweeteners
~trans fats, hydrogenated oils, and some animal fats
~artificial colors and flavors
(it wouldn't hurt to eliminate alcohol too, but that's not nice to say days before NYE!!)
I'll touch on all of these briefly:
~processed and packaged foods: over 77% of all processed foods have sugar added to them. Gross!! And we as Americans consume 150 pounds of sugar per year. Whoa!! The goal here is stay away from processed foods! Buy ingredients and make your own meals.
~refined grains: we consumer over 130 pounds of grain annually. WHEAT! Cakes, cereals, breads, pastas, cookies, and crackers <--- highly refined grains. These carbohydrates convert quickly to sugar and guess what!? Over consumption leads to inflammation in our body. They also prevent us from eating more micronutirent-rich food because there's no more room!
~sugars and sweeteners: self explanatory! Excess sugar has the potting to make you fat and it's linked with increased mortality rates. And cancer? Cancer LOVES sugar. And how to spot sugar (read your labels!!)??
~"-ose" suffix (sucrose, maltose, dextrose, fructose, glucose, galactose, lactose, high-fructose, corn syrup, and glucose solids)
~syrups and sweeteners (cane juice, detrain, maltodextrin, dextran, malt, beet sugar, corn syrup, caramel, diatase, anything syrup!!, turbinado, ethyl maltol...)
~and "-itol" suffix (maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol).
Manufacturers HIDE sugar in our foods. ELIMINATE!!
~trans fats, hydrogenated oils, and some animal fats: omega-6 fats are essential for our body but most of us, we get too many in our diet! Corn, soy, cottonseed, peanut and veg oil are great examples. And stay away from grain fed meats and caged eggs.
~artificial colors and flavors: also a given. They are CHEMICALS!!
Ready for what to replace all this nonsense with?
FRESH PRODUCE!!
NUTS and SEEDS!! (best nuts: walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, and macadamia nuts)
FRESH MEAT, FISH, POULTRY and EGGS
NATURAL FATS
That's it. It's that simple.
Food for FUEL not for fun.