The term “weight loss menus” may conjure up images of canned salmon covered in mustard and soy sauce, one of the diet staples from the largest diet program in the 1970s. I ate that, drank diet sodas, drank milk, and counted calories to no avail. In fact, I felt worse than I did before I started the program.
Admittedly, I dropped a few pounds, but the fat did not stay off and over the years I continued to try just about every fad diet that promised weight loss. It took a while to discover that none of them would give me the fat loss I wanted. I had to find a way to learn how to eat properly.
Eat to Live not Live to Eat
When you get into the cycle of yo-yo dieting, you feel like you’re trapped on a merry-go-round that goes on and on. You become so focused on what to eat, when to eat it and how much to eat that you actually never stop focusing on food.
Unlike an alcoholic who can walk away from alcohol again and never “need” one again to survive, diet addicts cannot just walk away from food. A major shift in thinking needs to take place so you can create a healthy relationship with food again.
The first step in this process is realizing that yes, you must eat to live, but food does not need to be the focus of your life. That does not mean throwing up your hands in resignation and eating whatever you wish. It means setting yourself and your kitchen up in a fashion that will allow you to make healthy eating plans with a minimum of stress so you don’t have to think about your meals all the time.
Eliminate the Negative
There are foods which we have long been told are fine to eat while “dieting” which are actually disastrous. Refined carbohydrates are perhaps the worst thing you can eat when you want to lose fat, but so many standard diet plans say things like pasta is okay. Refined carbohydrates turn on your insulin response and insulin turns that sugar into fat as quick as possible to balance out your blood sugar levels.
Not every oil is created equal. Stick to coconut oil and olive oil, exclusively. Coconut oil has an unjustified reputation as evil. It is not; in fact, it’s very high in lauric acid, which is turned into monolaurin in the body, a compound that fights numerous bacteria and viruses. It also contains short and medium fatty acid chains that help remove excess fat and boost the functioning of the thyroid and reduce the workload of the liver. Use coconut oil for frying and olive oil for everything else.
Accentuate the Positive
Most people like proteins, and they are really very good for you. Try to focus on whole organic eggs, grass fed meat, wild caught fish and organic chicken.
If you must have milk products, do not consider it as part of your protein needs and stick to raw, unpasteurized milk products. They still contain the digestive enzymes which are natural to milk and they will not have the chemical load that comes along with commercial milk. If you cannot get raw milk, stick to organic dairy products.
Get your calcium from dark leafy veggies, stock up on raw nuts, nut butters, and organic produce of any kinds. Use sea salt instead of table salt, use stevia and raw honey for sugar and any deli meats should be nitrate and nitrite free.
Now tell me, doesn’t that sound a lot better than canned tuna with mustard? It takes effort to make these changes, but this is just the beginning. Learn how to eat properly, not according to some strange weight loss menus, and you will come to enjoy eating again, and lose weight to boot.