It has been documented that if you keep a record of everything you eat and drink, you could lose 64% more weight than those who don't. Note the start time of your meal or snack and use as much detail about what and how much.
Now, let's talk about how these fantastic bodies process food (aka 'our Metabolism'):Our bodies will do one of two things with whatever we eat or drink. It will either burn it for energy or store it for later as body fat. That's it! In order to lose weight, we obviously want to do more burning than storing.
The best way to do that is to understand how to combine foods so they send less sugar into you bloodstream. This leads us to talking about carbohydrates. NO WAIT! I am NOT going to tell you that ALL carbs are bad! None of your favorite foods have to be off limits if you understand how to use them.
O.K., here's a little science lesson: ''Carbs" (whether they are from a baked potato, bread, pasta, a piece of chocolate cake - "yummy"! :P, or a piece of fruit) get converted to Glucose (sugar) which sends the message to your body to release insulin - a fat storing hormone. This really is amazing, because if our bodies didn't do that, it could damage our arteries - "Thank you, God for insulin!"
The good news: There is a way to eat these carbs where you can not only keep your body happy, but your taste buds too! We can 'optimize' our glycemic levels by keeping our insulin levels low throughout the day, thus preventing our bodies from going into the 'fat storing mode'.
Now, let's define the two kinds of carbs. We'll simply call them 'limited carbs' and 'go for it carbs'! How's that?! I already gave you a sample of the 'limited carbs' above, so here are some of the 'go for it carbs':
Leafy greens, high fiber veggies, berries & grapefruit, beans, peas & legumes. I will give you more on this later, but for now, let's talk about portion sizes and combination of these foods.
Of course, we need protein too, so we have to add a few of those here: Lean meats, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, cottage cheese, protein powder and soy (yuck! Did I say soy? - O.K., to each his own!)
So, what's the formula? Common sense for starters! If you are looking at your plate, which is mounded with spagetti, meat sauce AND 8 meatballs, doused in parmesan with a big hunk of garlic bread on the side - well, we have to talk! Just to keep this short, look at your plate and imagine it divided into 3 sections. You have a protein, a 'limited carb' and a 'go for it carb'. There you go! Yes, it will mean deciding between the noodle and the bread, but personally, I don't usually put my spagetti sauce on bread! You REALLY want a piece of garlic toast? SAVE IT FOR YOUR SNACK (you might want to go light on the butter while you're at it!)
REMEMBER - snacking is IMPORTANT (I knew you would like that!), because it keeps your metabolism (your fat burning machine) going!
O.K., we'll talk more tomorrow - it's time for me to get away from this computer!
One last thing that might help you get started.
Here are some SNACK IDEAS (We are not going worry too much about calories for now, but here is a good guideline - Women 100-200 cal., Men 100-300 cal.):
1 small bag of chips
1 slice of bread/toast with peanut butter
1/2 turkey sandwich (o.k., the garlic toast if you really must have it!)
cheese and crackers
fruit
a chicken leg
leftovers from a meal (snack size portion please!)
Protein bar
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