A fat loss diet should never be a starvation diet.
If you are starving on a diet, one day you’re gonna end up eating everything in sight.
You’ve probably experienced this before.
A fat loss diet should replace the empty calories you may be eating with whole food calories.
For example, a soft drink has calories in it from processed sugar, as well as a heap of other chemicals that do you no good. Pure coconut water, with nothing else added, has very low calories and is a good food (or drink) source.
So today we are looking at alternatives with foods and drinks.
Breakfast
Toast for breakfast isn’t great, even though it’s sometimes the only thing we have time for.
What’s a better alternative?
Get some gluten free bread, preferably one with various seeds packed in there.
Cover with organic butter and avocado, or almond butter spread or a boiled egg or tahini or quality hummus.
Doing this give you a better balance of carbs, fat and protein and will help with sustained energy through the day.
Morning & Afternoon Snacks
A muesli bar or muffin or something else you can grab real quick, is sometimes all you can manage so you don’t starve for the day.
A better choice would be a Clif Bar or Larabar or a Bounce Energy Ball.
I eat these when traveling or in a rush.
While they aren’t the best, they’re much better balanced with carbs, protein and fat and readily available.
But you have to look for them in supermarkets or health food stores.
Better still, make your own.
Here’s their ‘Near Perfect Bar’ recipe from our friends at Precision Nutrition: www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-eating-on-the-go.
Lunch
For busy people, lunch can be a tough meal to stop for.
Just grabbing a quick burger or sandwich makes for a brief feeling of full, if you’re lucky.
Most of this stuff is designed to make you even hungrier.
Not to mention the upsell to a drink or cookie or chips or fries or whatever other empty calorie treat they sneak you.
If you take a little time on a Sunday, you can whip up enough lunches to last a week.
It doesn’t need to be fancy, as long as it combines a balance of protein, carbs and fat.
Leftovers are great. Cooking a little more each night makes this easy.
Gluten free wraps are pretty good. Add some chicken or beef mince or kidney beans with some avocado and salad.
A big salad with meat and/or lentils, veg and olive oil dressing at lunch is great if you have time.
Ideally you want to sit and eat slowly so the body uses its energy to digest what you are eating.
If you are working through your meal, you’re not likely to absorb as much nutrition from the food as possible.
But you gotta do what you gotta do.
Dinner
If you are flat out or home late, it’s easy to grab takeout on the way home or throw a heat and eat meal in the microwave.
If you are grabbing takeout, have a go to place or two where you know in advance you can get something healthy.
I love the chicken cashew nut stir fry at Tao at Innaloo, and Peko Peko at Doubleview has some good stuff too.
Far less calories than pizza or pasta.
Heat and eat meals are sometimes all you can manage.
I found some ‘Core Power Foods’ heat and eat dinners at Doubleview IGA recently and they are pretty good on the quality and taste.
Check the labels if you need a gluten free one as they are not all that way unfortunately.
Also, the microwave doesn’t cook your food well and can destroy some of the nutrition. There’s plenty of research you can look at.
It may take some time to forget about your fast cooking microwave, but a pot on the stove at moderate heat with the lid on and a little water will heat it and preserve the nutrition better.
You’ll just need a little more patience.
If you need more veggies, add some more frozen stuff to the pot.
If you need a snack to tie you over to dinner, you probably skipped an arvo snack.
In this case, a cup of frozen blueberries with a little coconut oil can help tide you over.
It also makes for a sweet, post dinner snack.
Organic is Best
If you can make the switch to organic foods at least some of the time, you’ll be getting a far healthier product too.
Without the pesticides and herbicides and whatever else has been sprayed on there, you miss out on eating all that poison.
Pesticides are small enough in quantity that they won’t harm you short term (hopefully), but long term is where it all adds up.
If you build up a toxic load, it can be tough to get rid of, believe me.
You can lightly scrub your non-organic produce with apple cider vinegar in water, and this helps remove some of it.
Activated charcoal can also help pull some of the pesticides, and whatever else harmful, from your body.
I still eat some non-organic produce as it’s a little cheaper, but I don’t like to compromise on meat.
Organic meat is from animals who ate organic plant matter, so you’ll get some benefit from that too.
I often buy my meat from Woolworths and they also supply wild caught fish, but you still need to ask or check the labels.
Farmed fish are fed grains which are often not suitable for humans, and live in small enclosures, so try to avoid em.
You can get wild caught frozen fish at Woodlands Farmer Jacks at a reasonable price.
Also, get your eggs free range and organic.
If you have a friend with chickens, find a way to get eggs from them as it’s even better.
Good luck and if you have any questions, send em at me.
