Portion sizes: Imagine that you have just arrived in Dietville,
U.S.A. This city looks like Times Square in New York City with
all the colorful, fun, flashing billboards. All these billboards say
the same thing: portion control + eating slowly = successful
diet. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to eat
slowly and to eat small portions. The stomach is a magic
machine. Once it gets used to a smaller portion, it gets full
enough. During snacks, do not stuff your mouth full of food.
Learn to take small bites and chew slowly. For example, when
you are eating trail mix, do not stuff fistfuls into your mouth.
Slow down so that you can stay within the limit of the portion.
• Eating slowly: The stomach can take in lots of food very
quickly. It takes a while to register in the brain that you are full.
This is why it is important to eat slowly. Also, when food is
mixed with saliva and chewed thoroughly, it takes up more
room in the stomach. Don’t wait until you are starving to eat. By
that time, it’s too late to watch how and what to eat. Impulse
takes over and control is lost. In the Makeovers-Life Food Diet
Plan section, the sandwiches for lunch are not put together in
order to get you to eat slower. When you take a bite of a
sandwich, it is eaten too fast. However, when you eat small bites
of half a sandwich, you slow your food intake way down. So go
ahead, enjoy good food, but eat slowly. Savor every bite and you
will master the golden rule of successful dieting.
• Hot liquids versus cold liquids: People that drink cold
liquids with their meals have a much harder time digesting their
food. As soon as that cold icy liquid hits the food in your
stomach, it hardens it and digestion slows down…way down.
The way to give the digestive process a little magic boost is to
drink something warm with your meal like decaf tea. The food
is digested easier. Save the cold drinks for a snack.
• Diet foods: Low fat, fat free, sugar free, diet, lower
carbohydrates are all buzzwords put on foods next to pictures of
fresh fruit, vegetables, or dairy products to make us believe that
we are doing good by cutting bad carbohydrates, calories, or fat.
These foods are made with fillers like whey protein, sugar
substitutes and processed oils that are not good for our health
whether we are on a diet or not. So buyer beware. The only way
to eat is to stick to the basics.
* Butter versus margarine
* 2% milk, whole fat yogurt, half/half, heavy cream, sour
cream, a variety of cheeses versus low fat/fat free
counterparts.
* Sugar versus sugar substitutes.
* Mayonnaise versus lowfat/fat free mayonnaise.
* Real fruit juice-no sugar added versus fruit juice sweetened
with corn syrup and/or juice made from concentrate.
* Your home baked goods with your ingredients like
unbleached flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder,
vanilla, etc. versus bleached flour, corn starch, processed
oils, leavening agents, a rainbow of preservatives, added
vitamins and minerals.
* Corn oil, sunflower oil, and olive oil versus hydrogenated
soybean oil.
* Good cuts of meat like chicken, pork, beef and seafood
versus lower grade cuts of meat. Processed foods like
cold cuts, frozen dinners, and canned food.
* Whole wheat pasta, egg noodles, white pasta, and rice
versus already cooked pasta like in frozen dinners or
boxed foods.
* Sauces made at home from meat and vegetable stock,
butter, unbleached flour, and spices versus processed
sauces like gravies out of a can, jar or in powder form
made with thickening agents, corn syrup, processed oils,
animal fats from lower grade cuts of meat and
preservatives.
* Cream sauces made at home with butter, cream and real
cheeses versus cream sauces in powder form or in jars
that have soy fillers, processed oils, whey protein, and a
variety of preservatives.
*Snack foods like dried fruit, raisins, cherries, cranberries,
popped at home in the air popper popcorn, chips fried in
expeller pressed sunflower oil, chocolate chips, mixed nuts,
nut butters versus candy bars with corn syrup, processed
sugars, processed oils. Snack bars and processed baked
goods like cakes, pies and snack cakes.
*Real nut butter versus nut butter with soybean oil as a filler.
*Pizza made at home from pizza dough, real cheese and
better quality sausage, pepperoni, fresh mushrooms, and
fresh veggies versus frozen pizza made with bleached
flour and soybean oil.
*Tomato sauce made with olive oil, crushed or pureed
tomatoes, and spices versus tomato sauce made with
fillers like corn syrup and soybean oil.
• Most of the processed foods today have to be made in large
quantities. Therefore, the quality of ingredients is compromised
to sustain the shelf life of the product. The food we cook at
home with fresh ingredients is delicious without being
processed and shipped to your local grocery store. Home
cooked food would never make it on a truck in a box across
town or even worse, cross country. It’s not supposed to. It’s
meant to be eaten as soon as it’s prepared. That’s why it tastes
so good and it is so good for you.
• The Makeovers Life Diet Program promotes only wholesome
foods. Foods on the grocery store shelves that are meant for
cutting fat and calories are not part of this program. Use only
real ingredients. It is a wonderful way to do your body good by
getting your vitamins and minerals directly from your food. It is
the best way to eat.
• The scale: Buy a scale. Put it in your bathroom. While you are
bringing your eating habits back into balance, weigh yourself
naked every morning about an hour after you wake up. The
scale is an important tool in losing weight so that you can keep
track of your progress.
• 3 meals and 5 snacks a day: In order to lose weight, we
must cut our food intake at every meal, make better food
choices, and eat more often so that our bodies don’t feel
deprived. Eating smaller meals means that we will get hungry
again much faster. Eat three small meals every day-breakfast,
lunch, and dinner. Five snacks spread throughout the day and
evening is the key to success in balancing your eating habits.
The food choices in the diet plan menu are varied, natural and
delicious. Use this plan whenever your scale tips in the wrong
direction.
• Get going in the morning: The most important meal of the
day is breakfast. Your body’s digestive system starts as soon as
you eat. It is in fasting mode until you give it food. It is best to
start your stomach in the morning with a glass of warm decaf
tea-no sugar. If you give your body sweets first thing in the
morning, it is going to crave sugar all day long. The warm tea is
a gentle and soothing way to cleanse your stomach and prepare
it for the work that it has to do for you from morning to night.
Eating breakfast to stop the fasting process gets your
metabolism going earlier and burning more energy throughout
the day. When the body stays in fasting mode, it hoards energy
instead of releasing it in order for you to lose weight. Eating
breakfast is a great diet tip.
• Cut up fruit and vegetables when you’re snacking. It is
more enticing to eat fruit and vegetables when they are cut into
bite size pieces. There is no rhyme or reason why this is true; it
just is. Cutting up an orange to take with you on the go makes it
much more likely that you will actually eat it. Having to peel it
and get juice all over the place is messy. However, reaching into
a plastic bag and eating the nice cut pieces is a delicious neat
trick. Cut up all of your fruit and vegetables into bite size pieces.
• Animal fat versus vegetable/processed margarine:
There is a simple old fashioned test that shows which kind of fat
your body absorbs and digests easier. When you smear a pan
with grease like butter or bacon, you can wash it off with really
warm water. It leaves no residue on the pan at all. When you try
to do that same test with margarine, shortening or vegetable
(soybean) oil, the grease does not wash off the pan with warm
water. It lingers leaving everything greasy and sticky. The body
absorbs animal fat because it is natural. Processed grease is not.
That does not mean anyone should eat a ton of animal fat. The
right amount keeps your brain healthy and the body running in
balance. Not getting enough animal fat throws your body out of
balance.
• Check your progress often: It’s easy to gain weight
especially when you like to eat as most of us do. When you see
the scale going up 2 or 4 pounds, start your diet plan and watch
the weight drop to your desired level. It is much easier to lose 2
or 4 pounds in a few weeks than it is to try to lose 10 or 20
pounds that you’ve ignored for a few months. Keep up with your
weight in order to keep your body in good shape and your spirit
joyful.
• Once you learn how to bring your eating habits back
into balance, you can always return to it as you need it.
The best part about learning to eat healthy on a diet is that you
never have to starve or turn to processed food to lose some
weight. It is like riding a bike. All of us crave junk food. After all,
it tastes sinfully delicious. Most of us grew up with it before we
knew any better so it’s also comfort food. Who doesn’t like the
taste of a greasy cheeseburger, French fries, and an icy cola to
wash it down? Home made food is an acquired taste.
However, once you get used to it, there is nothing like it. We all
get lazy and want to take the easy out and go out to eat. When
going out and eating gross food gets old and it does, the
Makeovers Life Food program is here for us…waiting
unconditionally like an old friend to help us get back to good.
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