What to eat to lose weight and lose fat....

Today's Post: Monday, 4-4-2011

A. Eating to lose fat and fat weight permanently AND become healthier and live longer depend on doing all the basics needed.:

1. For example, exercising five to seven days a week prevents you from losing muscle and brain cells. It will protect you from heart problems and begin to do so even before you lose all your fat. Your self esteem will also go up even sooner than that, particularly if you do strength training and if you keep track of your exercise so you see yourself make gradual progress or even fast progress!

But, the benefits go even farther for the fatloss itself. You cannot eat more fattening foods totally more calories than the exercise and hope to lose fat. BUT, you can eat more total food and will be less hungry and less likely to trigger the famine response. That makes both losing all the fat and keeping it off doable!

The even better news is that although more is better as is adding several miles of walking each week, strength training, interval cardio, or even simple crunches or pushup or squats or heel raises done for 6 to 20 minutes a day at home can be quite effective. Doing these exercises first thing in the morning is the most reliable way to do this that avoids conflicting with the rest of your life. And, you get in the exercise before the varying demands of the day.

Another way to do it is to go to the gym or a circuit training place like CURVES for women two evenings a week instead of watching TV –OR – get a stationary bike and ride it while you watch TV.

2. Edit out as close to all the really health harmful and fattening only foods and drinks that you can.

3. Eat a bit less of the foods that are good for you but a bit fattening.

4. Eat far more of the foods that are both good for you and help you be less hungry while eating fewer calories.

B. Find a way to systematically remove a small amount of calories from what you eat that avoids the famine response.

Exercise is a huge help.

It turns out always eating breakfast also helps since people who do are less fat but eat usually more calories than people who never do. That also give you extra leverage.

I’ve seen four ways to do this.

Eat health OK food but with fewer restrictions on what kind or how much every other day and eat only foods that promote fat loss or a bit less food every other day. I like this one as the days you eat a bit more can be adaptations of what you already eat. So it’s better for people just getting started. And I find it much easier to keep doing.

Eat only foods that promote fat loss six days a week. And actually eat more and far less strictly one week-end day a week. I find the six days a week a of being strict a bit much and for it to be too easy for me to overdo the “cheat” day. But this works well for some people. One woman found having a “cheat” day once a week caused her to make no progress but was OK with the strict days since she could tell herself, “I can have that. I just can’t do it now. But I’ll have that on my monthly “cheat” day.” That worked for her very well.

Eat 6 half meals a day that total a bit less calories and only eat health OK foods AND eat them almost exactly 2 hours apart. That gives you a preemptive strike on hunger since you get to eat before you begin to get too hungry when you eat that often.

The last one splits up the day. Breakfast and lunch are very strict. But you eat normal if exclusively health OK dinners where you avoid stuffing yourself. I use this one myself a bit making my breakfasts and weekday lunches stricter and my dinners a bit less so.

C. Meal by meal.

Breakfast:

Soft drinks – both regular and diet -- and foods with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, refined grains, and even hydrogenated oils are in some people’s breakfast. Whole grains, fruit, nonfat and very lowfat milk and real fruit juice are health OK but somewhat fattening, so you have to be careful not to overdo them.

Step one is to eliminate any of the foods you have been eating for breakfast from the first sentence and step two is to systematically eat less of the health OK but somewhat fattening foods.

What are the best foods to eat more of?

Health OK or almost health OK proteins. Nonstarchy vegetables. Beans and lentils. And, moderate amounts of health OK fats and oils. That combination of foods provides excellent nutrition, turns off hunger well, has fewer calories than the less filling breakfasts most Americans eat now, and it produces virtually no blood sugar and insulin spikes. As a result it both cuts calories and stops you body from adding fat.

One simple breakfast is two boiled eggs; a small, medium serving compared to what is normal for you of precooked lentils; a single kind of fresh fruit; and tea or green tea and an 8 ounce glass of the new Low Sodium Spicy Hot V8. (I lost my most recent 15 pounds in large part by eating this breakfast every other day.)

Another is to scramble 2 eggs with a can of precooked and de-tailed shrimp and a very large serving of sprouts in cast iron frying pan with extra virgin olive oil with a cup of coffee to drink either black of with a tiny bit of half an half (light cream) or 1% lowfat milk.

Another is to have a 6 ounce piece of poached wild caught salmon with spices and a large medium bowl of coleslaw with a third the normal mayo and with diced onion and a medium serving of precooked pinto or black beans with either tea, green tea or coffee.

Lunch and Dinner are almost easier.

Taking raw walnut and pecan halves, pureed squash, sweet potato, or pumpkin with nothing else added plus a large serving of raw broccoli florets – organic if you can get them and tea or coffee works for a lunch to take to work. You can also add some skinless cooked chicken or a can of precooked and de-tailed shrimp to that or a salad with greens or cabbage and extra virgin olive oil in moderation and some diced onions and tomatoes for more protein or more vegetables.

You can also make one meal salads. Dice a boiled egg, add a can of precooked and de-tailed shrimp, a handful of raw walnut halves and a bit of extra virgin olive oil with greens or cabbage and some diced onions and tomatoes and some canned, precooked lentils, black beans, or pinto beans.

Chipotle Bar and Grill has beans, decent quality beef and chicken with great spices, and vegetables and guacamole. You can go there and eat that part of their food and leave the wheat or corn grain part out. What you do eat will keep you full and fortified. Plus it tastes good too! One man ate that kind of lunch and dinner there almost every day while losing over 20 pounds.

SUBWAY is a bit harder; but it also can work very well. You have to work harder NOT to allow yourself ANY of the soft drinks or desserts or bread. But they have relatively lowfat meat of several kinds and a veggie version with avocado. Simply order one or two of their “sandwiches” but insist they be served on a plate with no bread and add all the kinds of veggies you like to each one. They have tomatoes, mild pepper, diced onions, and more. You can eat really well and lose fat by doing this. And, SUBWAY locations are virtually everywhere.

All the lunch ideas can work for dinner.

Here are some others.

Add some canned wild caught salmon, some precooked pinto beans, your favorite tomato based pasta sauce with no soy or corn oil, some extra virgin olive oil, and some added chili powder, red pepper, black pepper, and garlic powder.

Or, have some but not too much! Almond butter as an appetizer and for the protein. And have some precooked pinto beans, your favorite tomato based pasta sauce with no soy or corn oil, some extra virgin olive oil, and some added turmeric, your favorite curry spice, black pepper, powdered paprika, and garlic powder.

Follow that with a glass or two of red wine.

If you like spicy, these two will work quite well.

Or you can go to an upscale restaurant and have a protein entrée such as wild caught salmon, chicken, or grass fed only beef and a salad and a vegetable dish and one or two drinks. But ask that the salad be served right away and pass on the bread.

(If they can’t do that and you have to sit with the bread for many minutes waiting for the food while you are very hungry, a fall back plan I’ve found to work is to get a single quarter piece of the bread and have that with a pat of the real butter or better a good bit of extra virgin olive oil. The result is low glycemic and not too high in total calories with just one. And, I get my glass of red wine right away. Once I eat that and have the wine, I can easily pass on stuffing with more bread.)

Or you can cook or have your significant other cook a similar meal at home.

The bottom line is that although there are some Spartan choices that work, you can eat surprisingly well for flavor and for good quality food and still eat mostly protein foods, vegetables, beans and lentils, health OK fats and oils, and nonstarchy vegetables and spices.

And, you can do it a little at a time.

Every other day, eat an upgraded version of what you eat now; and every other day try a stricter more fat reducing version to see how it goes. If that version works for you at a cost you can afford, great! If part of it tastes horrible or costs too much, make substitutions until you get versions you are OK with continuing to eat.

For example, I tried eating thawed frozen chopped spinach instead of applesauce with no sugar added to eat less fruit and more vegetables. The spinach by itself tasted horrible, it was hard and messy to serve, and it gunked up my teeth!

Yikes! But when I went to an upscale grocery store where people who really cook buy food, I found that Libby’s makes a totally unsweetened pumpkin puree. That tasted OK and MUCH better than the spinach. And it is easy to serve and eat without gunking up my teeth. So that worked and it continues to.

(I found a recipe with egg and cheese and mushrooms to use up the remaining spinach. That worked MUCH better!)

The key is to try things within the guidelines until you find foods you can keep eating at worst and actually enjoy at best.