I am NOT a doctor or nutritionist, these are just some things that work for me and my family. If you have any tips or tricks, drop them in the comments!
Don’t be afraid of fat and calories
I mean, don’t go crazy, but fat and calories give you energy and help you fill up along with tons of other health benefits. Eating fats and calories doesn’t mean you are gaining fat. It’s fuel for life. Eating whole fat or 2% yogurt will give your body a sense of being full that nonfat yogurt simply WILL NOT DO. If you lived through the nonfat craze of the 90s…you may need to do some mental gymnastics and a little reprogramming of your brain to get away from the “fear of fats”. Trans Fats tho… avoid the trans fats as much as possible!
Don’t overdo the carbs and sugars…but don’t be afraid either
Carbs and sugars are ‘super ready to go’ energy! Definitely with the popularity of Atkins and Keto we are moving from a “fear of fats” culture to a “fear of carbs” culture. The reality is your body just really needs something well rounded! You need a little bit of these carbs and sugars here and there to keep your systems working properly, have energy for the day, and not shock your body.
A lot of diets rely on shocking your body and metabolic systems…but it’s not a long term solution generally because it can (a) make you physically ill if you eat something “off diet” (b) make you crave and binge, and (c) make it hard to consistently stick to said diet because things like going out with friends for a bite or grabbing something “on the go” become mine fields of failure. Oh, and it can wreak HAVOC on your organs and really stress them!
Fuel for weight loss
Fuel for weight loss is pretty simple.
Step 1: Cut out foods that add a ton of calories but don’t make you feel full (or as full as they should based on nutrition content). Some examples would be oodles of sugars like candy, soda, refined carbs, alcohol. High amounts of sugars can also trick your body into feeling like you’re MORE hungry! If you are having a serious sugar craving drink some water and wait 5-10 minutes. You’d be AMAZED at how often this little trick works. Didn’t work? Carry a couple small hard candies on you (I like Nips) and eat one if the craving is strong even after drinking water and waiting. Typically just one tiny little candy will completely disable my desire to eat a pint of ice cream after waiting a few minutes.
Step 2: Eat foods that make you feel full and satiated with reasonable calories for the portion. Some examples are soluble fibers, whole grains, and proteins.
Some Additional Quick Dos and Don’ts for foods:
Do: Eat fatty fish once a week! high in Omega-3 fats and high quality protein, fatty fishes, like salmon have been proven to reduce belly fat as well as protect you from disease (Omega-3 fatty acids are amazing little buggers!).
Do: Add apple cider vinegar to your diet! Within it’s myriad of health benefits, if lowers blood sugar levels and contains acetic acid which reduces fat storage, especially around your abdomen! It’s recommended to drink 1-2 tablespoons per day. Be sure to dilute with water!!! Undiluted vinegar can erode your teeth!
Don’t: Drink Juice!!! Like all juices. This was hard for me because, in addition to being delicious, it sounds soooo healthy! The reality: they’re nearly as bad for weight loss and maintaining healthy weight as soda. What you’re drinking is fruit minus all it’s amazing fibrous bits! the fiber in fruit is what makes you feel full and makes fruit WORTH THE CALORIES! You’re basically just drinking thick, sugary water.
Do: Take a probiotic. Especially one in the lactobacillus family. They have been shown to reduce fat storage.
Don’t: take your vitamins in gummy form. Yes they’re yummy. No it’s not easy for manufacturers to guarantee you’re actually getting in each gummy what is says on the label because of they way they are made. Yes it’s the same as eating high sugar candy and will likely invite food cravings and a feeling of hunger. There’s not a ton of good info that vitamins help people who have access to well rounded diets and a variety of foods (we are quite lucky in the US), but if you must take a vitamin, you should be taking regular capsule vitamins.
Do: be skeptical of “healthy foods”. My favorite example is a yogurt parfait. These buggers are packed with carbs and sugar and not much else. You will get a fair whallop of protein if you use a Greek yogurt, but have you ever looked at how much sugar is in commercially sold flavored yogurts? or those berry compotes they put on parfaits? Better solution: reinvent the yogurt parfait if that is what you are craving! PLAIN Greek yogurt, flavor the whole thing with high fiber berries like blackberries and raspberries and sprinkle on some flax seed and chia seed as topper for texture! Another fun one is things like “sugar free ice cream” or “low fat ice cream” a lot of the chemicals they use to replace the fats and sugars REALLY mess with your brain chemistry and appetite! If you’re going to eat ice cream, GET THE GOOD STUFF! Get your absolute FAVORITE ice cream! Just be sure to watch your portions and make it a “sometimes” and not “all the time” thing.
Do: Eat whole foods and use whole ingredients! Nothing worse than not knowing what exactly you are eating! A lot of companies, to maintain a certain shelf life (or pleasing color), put all sorts terrifying stuff in packaged and processed food. I’m talking stuff that can literally cause cancer, stay in your cells for YEARS, and stuff that other countries have BANNED as unhealthy or harmful ingredients. I’m not suggesting you make EVERYTHING from scratch. Ain’t no one got time for that. In addition to that, most whole foods tend to fill your bodies needs better and don’t contain carbs or sugars as filler ingredients. I do suggest you learn to follow the next rule as closely as possible.
Don’t: Shop the middle aisles of the grocery store! keep it on the perimeter. The middle isles is where you find things like breakfast cereal (kiddie kibble), candies, sodas, packaged dinners, etc. Most of these things you likely shouldn’t be eating at all if you’re looking to maintain a healthy weight or lose weight, but they also can contain some VERY concerning chemicals and ingredients. The outskirts of a grocery store will contain all your produce, meats, dairy, bakery (slippery slope, but I believe everyone NEEDS whole grain breads in moderation), etc. you can move in an aisle or two towards the middle to grab your canned goods, some frozen meats or veggies if more convenient, etc, but really focus on stocking up your life with things that perish in a reasonable amount of time and are only the one thing they are advertised as being (like eggs…eggs are just eggs).
Don’t: Buy junky, non nutritious food for your family all the time. You will eat it. If I buy my kids chips, I will eat AT LEAST some of them. If I don’t buy them chips. I will not. It’s almost that simple. We are built to have very little willpower around fats and sugars because we used to really need all that ready energy when we could find it (it was rare to find it). Now we can just walk to the store and get it whenever. Even more dangerous is just being able to walk to the pantry and get it. My family totally eats chips, it’s just not something we keep in the house regularly. I may buy a small (read: not party sized, not family sized) bag for us to share for a Friday movie night. I do stock my family with healthy snacks in the fridge and pantry…so when I get a craving, I can’t go too wrong.
Don’t: Feel bad if you eat something that isn’t great for your body (It’s inevitable)! Guilt is a healthy eating habits KILLER! I eat all sorts of things that are “bad for me”. I like cake at parties, I have ice cream on a hot day, I love jalapeño chips probably more than the average human. None of these things are “not conducive to a healthy weight” because I eat them in moderation and watch how much I’m eating in one sitting. I don’t binge on them, because I’m making sure I don’t let me body get to the point where I’m desperate for food.
Watch portion sizes
Probably the 1000% best advice I can give is to watch your portion sizes and second helpings. Everyone’s body is different, and everyone’s metabolism is different, and these thing even change over time. For me personally, that stomach brain ‘shut off button’ doesn’t work as advertised in my body. In most people it takes about 20 minutes from your first bite for your belly to signal to your brain that you’re full. For me, I’ll swear, it’s more like 30-40 minutes! This means I have to very carefully monitor my portions and not eat more or go for seconds for AT LEAST half an hour after I start eating. It also means I benefit from eating my food slower (I am a natural inhaler of food).
Eat Slower, eat snacks, enjoy your food!
Eating slower was a long learning curve for me. I find it MUCH harder to do if I’m positively starving!
Intermittent fasting is NOT a thing I can do. I have tried it, it will ALWAYS lead to me binge eating. The time between my last meal and the promise of more food when fasting becomes one full of stress and almost physical pain and low energy. It takes a TON of mental and physical willpower for me and I just don’t have that all the time. Sometimes there is other stuff going on in my life *because I’m a human*.
To help with this, I generally allow myself a little snack before I plan on eating a meal. I aim for about 15-30 minutes before. This is ESPECIALLY true if I plan on eating out at a restaurant AND before I go grocery shopping. Eating a little something before heading out to the restaurant tends to make me feel more satiated by the time I get there and REALLY helps me make better menu choices and calmly and slowly enjoy my food and listen to my body’s “I’m done” signal more despite those huge portions.
Change the size of your dishes
This little trick really really helped both my husband and I curb our portions! We are not naturally the kind of people who will sit and measure or weigh portions. I find the whole extra step/process of this obnoxious. On the suggestion of a nutritionist friend we went out and purchased a set of small salad plates and small bowls to use as our everyday dishware. This sounds super stupid, and I’m not a psychologist, but this ABSOLUTELY WORKS! We put stuff on these plates and it instantly looks like SO MUCH FOOD even if it’s just a realistic and normal amount. If we had put the same amount of food on our larger plates, we would have felt like we were dieting and restricting ourselves because like 3/4 of the plate would have been empty. It just doesn’t feel that way on smaller dishware! Our brains are amazing and weird. It’s very very hard to overfill our bellies with these plates because when your plate is empty, it really gives you a moment to think if you NEED more or you just need to wait for your brain signals.
Don’t serve your food at the table
This is another psychology one…and I’m only partially clear how it works, but hear me out: A lot of people serve their food at the table. My WHOLE childhood consisted of most meals being served at the table. The problem this creates for me, is if I want more cereal, or a second serving of stew, or another half of a sandwich…there are NO BARRIERS to me simply reaching over and adding more to my plate or bowl.
On the advice of a nutritionist friend we started serving up plates in the kitchen and LEAVING the rest of the meal that was not on our plates IN THE KITCHEN. This makes you have to get up to go get more and just that simple 5 second decision of getting up really helps you take the time to mentally process if you really WANT more or if it’s just there and tastes good and is convenient. I have even walked to the kitchen for a second helping and instead just put my dishes in the dishwasher because that 10 foot walk helped my brain process that my body is actually full!
You don’t have to clean your plate!
I can hear my mom saying “finish your dinner!” when I write this. Or my aunt saying “why aren’t you eating your (insert dish she cooked here)? You don’t like it?”. This is truly one of my hardest mental blocks to remove because I think it was just so deeply ingrained in the culture of how I grew up.
The truth is, if I only feel like eating a couple bites at the dinner table because I’m not super hungry, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason I need to finish what I was served. It also doesn’t mean I can’t sit there and have a nice dinner and conversation with my family. No one gets to gaslight me into eating more. My body is telling me “I’m done, I don’t need any more energy!” and I need to listen to it!
If you’re at home, wrap your plate to finish at a different time. If you’re at a restaurant, get a to-go box and enjoy later. With modern refrigeration and freezing abilities and the magic of the microwave (or air fryer) for leftovers…you don’t need to be bullied (or mentally bully yourself) into eating more than you need.
90% of what you are drinking should be water
I mean, this is pretty cut and dry. Also, you should be drinking it pretty constantly throughout the day and sipping, not chugging. If you chug you’re just asking for a bunch of bathroom breaks for almost no benefit. You’re body can’t absorb and process it that fast. Sipping helps your body absorb it at the normal pace (slowly) and it’ll help you feel full longer. Especially when combined with foods high in soluble fibers!
Reduce your stress and get good sleep
This sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Seriously though, if you reduce your stress your body produces less of the hormone cortisol (the stress hormone) which is proven to increase appetite and also increase abdominal fat storage. Want to know the real bugger?! A few years ago they determined women who already have a larger amount of belly fat produce MORE cortisol when stressed…leading to a REALLY obnoxious cycle. I like yoga and baths for stress release and try to work it in most days. At least a 10 minute yoga session or a bath where I bring in all the fancy bath bubbles and incense and lock my children out of the bathroom while I watch some truly terrible reality TV.
Sleep…get more than 7 hours, less than 9. It needs to be quality sleep, though. A lot of fitness trackers can chart if the sleep you are getting is quality and chart your sleep cycles. If you have sleep apnea, GO SEE A DOCTOR! Not only is it pretty dangerous, but it REALLY prevents you from getting quality, restful sleep. I could write so much on sleep apnea and my husband’s journey with it, but just trust me and see a doc!
What about exercise?!
What I’m about to say here may be controversial because everyone in the 70s, 80s and 90s taught you that you need to ‘sweat off the pounds’… If you do the math on this, you’ll probably realize weight loss and maintenance is 99% an intake issue…and not so much a balance of daily intake vs. output.
I want to preface this with the statement: I AM IN NO WAY SAYING DON’T EXERCISE!
Cardio exercise, as little as 20 minutes 2-3 times a week, can VASTLY improve your heart and cardiovascular health which has ALL SORTS of weight loss and health benefits. Weight training and increasing your muscle mass and density has an even MORE profound effect of weight loss because muscle burns more calories y’all! Also, not listing them here, but various types of exercise have like a bajillion other great health benefits including increased bone density, energy, etc. I love yoga because i get relaxation, weight training and muscle building, and increased flexibility all in one fell swoop AND you can do it basically anywhere without special equipment.
What I am saying is: DON’T KEEP A CALORIE LOG where you weigh how much you are eating against how much you are burning while exercising. Not only is this a complete mind f*** because you will be 1000% discouraged if you eat that burger and fries at the BBQ but seriously, who has time for this? What if you forget to write something down? Are you sure you got an accurate count on that burger and fries? did you measure how much ketchup you used?! No. too much.
Also, have you ever looked into the calories your body is burning per activity? If I jog for an hour (you couldn’t PAY me to jog for an hour), I burn about 400 calories. That’s a discouraging amount of calories to have to stress over and for that much WORK! …and stress is NOT good for weight loss…
Better way: eat the right foods. Learn when you’re full and what to do/eat so you’re not making your body feel overwhelmingly hungry. Eat whole foods. Increase your muscle mass. Focus on the solution as “being healthier in life” and not “losing weight”. Watch your portions. Don’t stress over calories. Just don’t add unnecessary stress at all! Find recipes and foods that FIT INTO YOUR LIFE and family that are healthy.