How To Make Your Own Effective Meal Plan For Fat Loss
You need a Meal Plan for fat loss. You are on a diet. Whether you think so or not, it’s true. Your diet could consist of chicken nuggets, nachos, and diet soda. Or maybe it’s a Muscle Milk for breakfast, pad thai for lunch, and frozen pizza for dinner. Whatever goes into your mouth on a regular basis is literally, your diet.
More often than not, people think that a diet is a resolve to all their health issues; that a 30-day challenge Detox or Strict Diet is the thing that is missing. Many people believe that these challenges will finally get them the body they want (Read More HERE On Why This Is Not True). They may survive this Detox or challenge and get the quick results. But what happens when the diet ends? If you are like most people, when the diet ends….The plan ends. You gain the weight back, you feel like shit, and you’re right back to where you started. I hear this same sad story over and over again. Most diets are just quick fixes. Limiting your food intake to grapefruits, high amounts of fat, or portion sizes that couldn’t feed a newborn, are unrealistic expectations and do nothing but set you up for failure.
Reaching your goals requires more than just a diet you practice intermittently when you feel like losing a few pounds. It requires an entire LIFESTYLE change, commitment, and most of all CONSISTENCY.
Watch the video below and read through this post to learn some helpful habits that you can instill easily into your lives and get the results you want without restricting yourself to insane limits.
1. Focus Your Carbs Around Your Workout
Over the last thirty years, the average American diet has increased by 500 calories per day, with nearly 80% of those added calories attributed to simple carbohydrates or sugar starches. The simple reason; packaged and processed foods are more easily accessible than ever and it’s cheap. Donuts, fries, pastries, pie, sodas, and chips flood grocery store aisles and provide a quick fix to your hunger.
So what should you do? Eat the right carbs is what.
Carbs can be distinguished into two main categories, simple and complex.
Simple carbohydrates are simply sugar and come in the form of glucose and fructose. Glucose raises blood sugar quickly and foods that are higher on the glycemic index (GI) has a greater impact on blood sugar.
Complex carbohydrates are the type of carbohydrates you should be eating. As opposed to simple carbohydrates, which is simply glucose and fructose, complex carbohydrates are composed of multiple sugar molecules that keep you fuller for longer. Foods like sweet potatoes, brown rice, whole-wheat grains, whole-wheat pasta, and butternut squash provide you with the proper nutrients you need to keep you satiated. When you’re full, you eat less.
Carbs help us have the energy for some awesome workouts and help with recovery after workout. They are great for people looking to get that lean full look for summer.
2. Add More Quality Protein
Protein gets a lot of play in the media, for good reason. Today, you are going to explore how protein is your friend when it comes to weight loss.
Protein helps you lose weight for a few main reasons:
- It makes you feel fuller longer which ultimately helps you consume fewer calories by snacking and eating less.
- High-quality proteins contain no sugar or very few carbs which helps keep your blood sugar stable.
- Protein helps to build and preserve muscle mass which will then increase your resting metabolism. This means you will be burning more calories for just being you, a stronger more muscular version of you. Oooooh yea!
- Protein helps you feel full after a meal.
3. Eat Less Starch And More Whole Grains
Starch is found in carbohydrates like white rice, white bread, and pasta. Starch is made of long chained sugar molecules, held together by a weak chemical bond. Once digested, they’re absorbed more quickly and will cause your blood sugar to spike, creating a roller coaster like we talked about earlier. The simple solution – replace them and eat more whole grains, complex carbs, vegetables, and fruit. Produce contains a ton of essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber to help your body function at a more optimal level. The average American intake of vegetables consists of just two well-known culprits; potatoes and iceberg lettuce. You need to diversify. Go to a local market that has fresh fruit and vegetables and try new things. You’d be surprised at how many pounds you can drop, by just cutting back on your starch intake and replacing it with quality sources of organic produce and whole grains.
4. Eat Your Veggies!!!
Greens, meaning any kind of “leafy” vegetable like spinach, kale, and lettuces, are awesome but you probably already know this. Its our job to simply remind you 🙂
Greens are well known for being some of the healthiest foods on earth — and there is good reason for this!
Studies show that eating 7 servings of these veggies a week can decrease your risk for cancer by 50%! While many nutrition experts disagree about which exact foods may be the healthiest, eating a lot of greens is the one thing that nearly all nutritionists agree on.
So with each meal, your focus should be on adding in a variety of vegetables (2 fists worth). You may want to think about throwing extra greens in! Simple, right?
Greens…
- are packed with vitamins A, C and K.
- are high in folate, fiber, magnesium, manganese, potassium, and sulforaphane.
- have the ability to fight almost every disease because they contain anti-inflammatory properties meaning they decrease risk for cancer and heart disease.
- help balance blood sugar levels.
- help to decrease food cravings because they provide a wide variety of nutrients you might be mising in your diet.
Greens are high in VOLUME, but have a very LOW CALORIE DENSITY, so you can eat loads of them. This means you can eat large portions of greens without consuming too many calories or gaining weight (which is ideal for any effective meal plan)
Greens (and all vegetables) help to “crowd out” other foods, especially junk food. For example, picture number of fries you could have for 100 calories versus the amount of kale you could have for the same calories. Now, consider how full you would feel after eating each. This is an example of how your stomach responds to the feeling of “filling up” on high volume, low calorie foods. Your stomach works with your brain to turn off your hunger signals based on volume consumed, allowing you to eat fewer calories overall.
Greens of all kinds are definitely your friend. If you miss everything else in these lessons about nutrition, remember this: eat more greens! Add them to omelets and soup, toss them in a stir-fry, make big salads using them as a base, or cook them down and serve your other food right on top of them.
5. Fat Does Not Make You Fat
Out of all the macronutrients, (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) fat is the only one that does not cause insulin to release. Despite its villainous name, fat is only guilty by association. Most diet meal plans restrict fats and carbs all together (among other things). Fat does not make you fat, carbohydrates and added sugars do. But with all the different types of fat, it can be confusing which ones you should include in your diet and which ones you should stay away from
Why Fats Don’t Make Us Fat?
One thing you may not know about fats is how they affect our energy, especially if we are training hard.
- For people who eat lower carbohydrate diets, a diet that pays attention to starches, the main source of energy that is burned off by the body easily and efficiently becomes fat. This style of eating is one of the most effective to losing fat.
- Fats and carbs should have an inverse relationship in a healthy diet, as one is limited, the other needs to go up to make up for lost calories. This way your body has enough fuel to do the things you love to do.
- Fat helps keep your metabolism and hormones happy and running smoothly which makes burning fat easier.
Omega-3 fatty acids are also considered a good or healthy fat as they help with inflammation, boost brain function, help fight heart disease, and even decrease signs of aging. Fish, walnuts, and avocados are great sources of omega-3 fatty acids. The easiest way to get your essential Omega 3 fatty acids is through supplementation. Opt for Fish Oil Or Krill Oil.
The Takeaway
Creating a healthier life to look good and feel great is more than just temporary change. All diets work to a certain degree short term. But the reality is that no diet is sustainable unless you make a complete life change. With so much misinformation on TV, the internet, and from misinformed friends it can be hard to pave a path through what’s good information and what’s just plain disinformation.
Rule Of Thumb:
- Protein and Veggies at every meal
- Try and Eat 4-5 Times a day
- Carbs After Your Workout
- Fats spread out through your meal….But watch the portions
If you want to know how to create your own EFFECTIVE meal plan that is right for YOU!!! Watch the video below to create your own
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