Healthy Recipes 360

Healthy Eating Plan For Natural Weight Loss

The best way to lose weight and to keep it off is to eat natural, whole foods and to avoid processed or unnatural foods. The average American diet is characterized by cheap, fast food, "junk" food and foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt. This "fast food" way of life is killing us. It makes people overweight or obese and is a source of disease and early death. Obesity increases the risk of diseases like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cancer and stroke. Eating healthy and maintaining a normal body weight can lower the risks associated with obesity.

This is not a "diet" and it shouldn’t be regarded that way. It should be a way of life. It can take weeks and months to gradually lose excess weight and be able to keep it off. There is no "quick fix". Fast weight loss usually backfires. Most people who lose weight too quickly wind up gaining it all back – plus more. The best way to prepare good food is to cook it yourself. That’s the reason for the recipes section of the website. Some recipes are quick and easy, while others take more preparation. You can broil salmon and serve it with a green salad in 10 minutes. You can cook oatmeal in 5 minutes. Those are a couple of examples of fast and easy recipes that are very healthy and help reduce cholesterol. Salmon is high in Omega 3 fats (good fats) and oatmeal has been shown to reduce cholesterol.

One thing that I have noticed is that bad food deprives the body of energy and when the body is low on energy what do we do? We become hungry and we need to eat. If what we eat is bad food, it will just make us hungry for more. This is the dwindling spiral. So the first hurdle to overcome is to replace bad food with good food that doesn’t make you hungry.

Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen

The first guidelines to adopt for a healthy way of life come from Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen. I saw them on an Oprah show on TV. They list five ingredients you should avoid when shopping for food:

1. Hydogenated oil, or partially hydrogenated oil and/or trans fats
2. Sugar
3. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
4. Saturated fat
5. Enriched flour

This simple list of ingredients to avoid is the best place to start because they are so ubiquitous. HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is virtually everywhere. You can find it in beverages, breads, pastries, condiments (like catsup), snacks, soups, salad dressings, sauces, ice cream, jams, jellies and syrups, etc., etc. HFCS has replaced sugar in most processed foods found in grocery stores and restaurants.

"Enriched" flour is another one. In the process of making enriched flour, naturally occurring vitamins are removed then added back in afterwards. The result is a food that is high in carbohydrate, but lacking in nutritional value. The best flour is made from whole grain – in it’s natural state – that hasn’t been processed. Don’t be fooled by foods made from "whole wheat". That is not whole grain. Avoid foods that say "whole wheat". Insist on "whole grain" instead.

Trans fat is another one. It is true that food labels can say "zero trans fat", but beware that even good fat can be turned into trans fat under the right conditions – like when hot oil comes into contact with starch. For example, deep frying produces trans fat (like french fries). Roasting nuts produces trans fat because nuts contain fat and starch (along with some protein). I buy raw nuts – raw almonds, raw pecans and I buy peanut butter made from raw (not roasted) peanuts. Trans fats are all over the place.

Hydrogenated fat is another one – similar to trans fat. Unsaturated fats will chemically combine more easily than hydrogenated fats. Unsaturated fat will combine with oxygen and go rancid. It is due to the outer shell of electrons on the atoms. If the shell is fully populated with electrons it can’t combine with other atoms. Hydrogenation is the process of bubbling hydrogen into the fat in order to "saturate" the outer shell of electrons and keep them from combining with oxygen – which prevents it from going rancid. Hydrogenation is a preservative process. It makes products last longer on the shelf. But it also makes a fat that the body can’t use easily. It has to work hard to break it down. If the fat was natural and unsaturated, it can use it more easily. Unsaturated fats don’t have a long shelf life like saturated fats, so foods made with unsaturated fats spoil more quickly. Be cautious even when eating in restaurants. The bread they serve can contain trans fats and hydrogenated fats.

You have to start reading labels when you shop for food. That’s the only way you can guarantee that the foods you choose won’t have these ingredients.

Artificial Sweeteners, Pesticides and Toxins

In addition to the five ingredients recommended by Drs. Oz and Roizen to avoid, I also try to avoid artificial sweeteners, pesticides, preservatives, toxic chemicals and environmental pollution because I believe these contribute to robbing the body of energy. Fatty foods, sugar, toxic chemicals, preservatives, pollution and lack of exercise and lack of sleep will rob the body of energy. Drinking too much coffee or tea can rob the body of energy. Anything that robs the body of energy can lead to weight gain. When the body’s energy runs too low, it can sink into a dwindling spiral of hunger, cravings and over-eating that inevitably leads to weight gain.

The whole point of this eating plan is to rehabilitate the body’s natural ability to obtain all the energy it needs plus more to the point where it burns its stored fat without being hungry.

Sugar makes you hungry. Even if you were to satisfy that hunger with good food, you would still tend to over-eat because the body would not be able to signal you that you were full until you have eaten too much. With a healthy eating plan you will have to ween off sugar, enriched or white flour and all junk food snacks and desserts for a period of a week or so. During this time I recommend eating only from a set of "core foods" (below). For the first week or so you should expect to experience uncomfortable “sugar withdrawals”, which should subside after awhile. The “core foods” allow meat, fish, poultry, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, whole grains, rice, beans and hot cereals (like oatmeal) and limited amounts of coffee, tea, fruit, fruit juices, raw nuts and salad dressing made from natural ingredients like Italian dressing or Balsamic Vinegrette (without sugar or additives). The core foods do not allow dairy, butter, eggs, alcohol, diet sodas, foods containing enriched flour, HFCS or trans-fats or hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils and fats of any kind, etc.

Core Foods

All calories were not created equal, and neither were carbohydrates. The "core foods" in a healthy eating plan are simply basic, whole foods not including breads, pasta or dairy. Examples of core foods are:

• Fresh or frozen fish, meat and fowl. This includes beef, lamb, pork, turkey, chicken, duck, salmon, cod, etc.
• Whole grains, cereals and legumes like oatmeal, brown rice, pinto beans, mung beans, split peas, millet, etc.
• Lots of fresh vegetables, both starchy and non-starchy like broccoli, couliflower, lettuce, onions, potatos, beets, carrots, radishes, parsley, cliantro (coriander), bell peppers, chili peppers, asparagus, etc.
• Small amounts of fruit and small amounts of good fats – like raw nuts. Always buy raw nuts – never roasted. Roasting introduces trans fats, and trans fats are one of the foods to avoid.
• Moderate amounts of coffee or tea.
• Plenty of water.
• Pretty much any recipe made from the above raw materials.

Breads, pasta and dairy are excluded from the core foods because breads can act like sugar and make you hungry. Dairy products like milk, eggs, butter and cheese are high in animal fats and should be avoided during the period your appetite is readjusting. You can introduce small amounts of bread and dairy products afterwards. You can have moderate amounts coffee and tea. Care must be taken not to consume too much caffeine because caffeine can interfere with blood sugar levels just like sugar.

Core foods don’t have to be organic, but they do have to be un-processed and wholly natural. If you prefer vegetarian, then you can do the core foods without the meat. The core foods are at the heart of this eating plan. The idea is to build your diet around a sound core and to eat only core foods for about a week to withdraw from sugar. When your body begins to adjust and your appetite signals return to normal, and you have experienced some weight loss, then you can gradually add small amounts of dairy, bread, snacks and natural sweets (like honey, agave nectar and more fruit or fruit juice drinks). Then you watch carefully and back off on dairy, breads, fats and sweets if you see your weight start to go up. If you find yourself getting hungry because you have eaten foods containing sugars (even natural sugars like fruit juice and honey), then you can always fall back on a regimine of core foods for a few days and watch your weight and pay attention to your appetite and get it back on track. This is a way of life – not a diet.

You should eat as much as you need to be satisfied – even if it means eating big steaks for a few days while you are shaking off the sugar Heebie Jeebies. You should eat your last meal no later than 7 pm and then nothing from that time until you go to bed, sleep for the night and wake up in the morning for breakfast.

Eat Your Last Meal No Later Than 7 PM

You should eat fruit and complex carbohydrates early in the day or mid-day and eat nothing after 7 pm. Your last meal should be a protein with vegetables. For dinner, try to eat non-starchy vegetables or only a a small portion of a starchy vegetable (green beans or peas). Make sure to include salad with leafy green vegetables and perhaps sliced cucumbers, radishes and tomatos. You can have a small amount of natural salad dressing like Italian or or Balsamic Vinegrette (without sugar or additives). For example, you can eat a heavy soup like split pea soup for lunch but I would avoid it at dinner time. You would eat brown rice during the day – maybe up to 2 pm – but not at dinner.

I like to have a green drink in the morning with supplements, followed by a breakfast of oatmeal topped with fresh or frozen fruit and some chopped raw nuts about 30 minutes to an hour later. Lunch can be anything that satisfies you. You can have as little as a couple of ounces of broiled salmon or as much as a plate of rice and beans with cooked ground meat or a bowl of thick soup like mung bean soup or split pea soup if you like. There are recipes for all of these in the recipes section of the website. For dinner, try to have a protein meal like meat, fish or fowl with a non-starchy vegetable (like green beans or asparagus) plus a leafy vegetable salad. I like to have a grilled steak with a salad made from Romaine lettuce and red lettuce with sliced cucumbers, radishes and tomatoes and a little all natural Italian dressing. Sometimes I will have just a salad with about a half a can of tuna in water (about 3 oz. of tuna) for dinner. But go easy on canned tuna or any canned food because the linings of most food cans contain chemicals like BPA (Bisphenol A) which are toxic. Most all tuna contains mercury which is also toxic. You want to minimize all toxins and harmful chemicals and try to avoid them altogether.

A Healthy Way of Life

You need to learn how to read labels when you shop for food and you will have to learn to cook your meals – or at least have someone prepare cooked meals. Just use the healthy recipes at this website. Do not attempt to do this with restaurant food. You have no way to check to make sure the food that restaurants serve is free of HFCS or trans-fats or enriched flour. Even the salads may contain sulfites and there is no guarantee that the nuts are not roasted. They must be raw.

After this time you will begin to lose weight – hopefully very, very slowly. It is much better to lose weight slowly. Rapid weight loss only leads to regaining lost weight. I cannot over-emphasize that THIS IS NOT A DIET, rather it is a way of life. Diets do not work. If you learn to eat good, wholesome, nourishing food all the time and enjoy it, you will see that you will be able to eat as much as you need to feel satisified because your body will be sending you the right signals when you are truly satisfied and you won’t be hungry all the time.

Once you have gone through the sugar withdrawals and the body begins to rejuvenate itself by feeding it good, natural food you can slowly add more fruit and fruit juices, more raw nuts, some whole grain breads, small amounts of raw honey (honey can set you back so go easy on it), sauces and trimmings and some organic snacks – as long as they contain all natural ingedients and don’t contain any enriched flour, HFCS, trans-fats or hydrogenated (or partially hydrogenated) fats and oils. If you find yourself gaining weight, then fall back on the core foods. Through trial and error, you will lose weight down to your ideal weight. It can take months, even years, but it will be worth all the effort. You will gain control over your life and eating by making it a way of life.