After the December holiday season, with all the associated over-eating and over-consumption, it’s back to normal in January… Or is it? Most of us have put on weight and probably have some extra fat rolls that have mysteriously appeared, and which make fitting into the same size clothes just that little less comfortable….
So what’s the solution? Many of us rush to sign up to a dieting club or weight loss website, or start that exercise regime we’ve been avoiding. But after a few weeks, somehow the endless calorie counting and physical stuff just doesn’t seem to be doing the trick – the extra pounds are still there, stubbornly refusing to reduce, and that familiar feeling of dread creeps up every time we think of stepping on the scales.
The sad truth is that diets and dieting don’t work!
If diets worked, the majority of people would only need to diet ONCE in their lives – and most of us would be SLIM, not overweight.
Let’s look at diet plans, particularly the 600 calorie meal plan, and unpack them:
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So what really is the solution then?
Did you ever notice how eating in our society is closely linked to emotions and feelings?
- When we feel a little tired at work, it’s time to take a break and drink or eat something…
- When we’re feeling a little down, someone will think they’re doing good by making you a drink or meal to “cheer you up”…..
- When we feel good, we treat or reward ourselves with a meal or a snack (often involving chocolate)….
Unfortunately this has been responsible for scrambling the information between our bodies and our brains – we no longer eat when we’re really hungry or when we need certain nutrients, but we eat just because we want to, and to fit with various emotional states.
So it’s time to get the balance back.
The one and only weight loss secret is this: Be happy. Be truly happy with yourself, your family, your partner, your work, your life as a whole. Fix the things that make you unhappy, and not with food!
Once you have reconnected with you, you will be much more in tune with your body too. It’s then much more likely that you’ll eat only what and when you need, and you’ll slowly lose weight over time to reach your ideal weight in a few months.
This is not a process you can rush – it’s a new attitude to food – but the benefit of taking longer to lose weight is that your healthy eating habits become more ingrained in your eating psychology, and you’ll keep to your ideal weight forever!
Read Yael Cohen’s story of her dieting journey, and how she eventually learnt to love food and lose weight at the same time: My “No Diet” Diet.
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These amazing fat loss pills are eaten just before meals and contain two revolutionary, natural ingredients that can help reduce the body’s absorption of calories from fat and carbohydrates. A fibre from the prickly pear and a protein derived from white kidney beans together help you to succeed in your quest to reach your ideal weight. Order your Forever Lean weight loss supplement from the USA FLP store or the UK FLP store. You can find out more about Forever Lean here.
Bins picture courtesy of http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2642939/Householders-face-70-fines-for-putting-wrong-waste-in-green-bins.html
Quite a few diets or weight loss plans talk about eating a low calorie main meal of the day, lunch or dinner – often suggesting a maximum of 600 calories/kcal per meal.
But what is a 600 calorie or low calorie meal?
Quite simply put, the calories/kcal of all the ingredients and food items in any main meal that you eat must add up to around 600 calories/kcal. You can either purchase a calorie counter book and add up the calories of each ingredient in your meal/recipe, or use a calorie counter online tool, which are helpful, but can be a little laborious.
Or you can simply get started by using some of these low calorie (400 calorie/kcal) meal suggestions for lunch or dinner, straight from the Forever Living Nutri-Lean Programme:
Meal 1 – Grilled chicken with sweet potato and salad
1 medium chicken breast, skinless (100g)
1 medium baked sweet potato or yam
125g steamed vegetables
125g Romaine lettuce salad with 1 tablespoon light dressing
Meal 2 – Salmon with angel hair pasta, green beans and toasted almonds
75g – 100g salmon
125g angel hair pasta with 1 teaspoon olive oil
125g green beans with 1 tablespoon toasted almonds
Meal 3 – Chinese shrimp/tofu and brown rice
125g shrimp or 125g tofu
125g chinese stir fry vegetables
2 tablespoons stir fry sauce
125g brown rice
1 fortune cookie
Meal 4 – Baked potato with cheese and romaine lettuce salad
1 medium baked potato with skin
25g low fat shredded/grated cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon diced onion
125g Romaine lettuce salad with 1 tablespoon light dressing
Meal 5 – Low fat beef or turkey burger on wholewheat bread rolls
75g extra lean (90%) minced beef or turkey burger
2 slices light wholewheat bread, or a light wholewheat roll
Lettuce, pickles, onions, mustard (unlimited) as relish for your burger
Meal 6 – Low fat grilled pork chops with wild rice and spinach
100g lean pork chop or tenderloin, with visible fat trimmed off
125g wild rice
125g cooked spinach
Meal 7 – Tasty low fat tortillas
2 soft corn tortillas
75g seasoned extra lean ground beef
25g low fat shredded/grated cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon light or low-cal sour cream
Diced tomatoes, lettuce, onions, salsa (unlimited) as relish for your tortillas
Meal 8 – Chicken breast strips with linguini pasta and french bread
125g cooked linguini noodles
75g skinless chicken breast strips
125g sauted green or yellow peppers, garlic and onions in 1 teaspoon olive oil
125g tomato pasta sauce
1 piece french bread
Once you’ve tried a few of these low calorie meals, you should be able to adapt your usual recipes and meals more easily.
Some of the concepts used to create these low calorie meal ideas, which you can use too:
- Include meat or vegetable protein, grains/starches and greens in every meal to ensure optimum nutrition,
- Use different proteins, starches and vegetables every day to ensure you get exposed to a range of different vitamins, minerals and nutrition across the week,
- Use light, low fat or low calorie versions of ingredients where possible, and trim visible fat off meats,
- Be creative – try something new and different every few days, so that your taste and smell senses are excited and you look forward to meals with anticipation, not anxiety because you’re dieting.
Keep eating low calorie meals to sustain your weight loss – but do monitor it, and increase your calorie intake slightly when you reach your ideal weight. Involve your family – simply multiply the ingedients by 3 or 4 or 5 if you’re cooking for more than 1 person, but remember that children and non-dieting adults will need to consume more calories, so allow extra for them. Have fun and enjoy your food – it’s one of life’s little pleasures!
Get some more low calorie meal ideas from the bbc good food website here.
Here’s to you being slim and even more beautiful than you already are! 
P.S. Get your low calorie recipe and meal idea books here:
Selected 400 calorie meal suggestions from the Forever Living Nutri-Lean Programme booklet, which comes free with your Clean-9 or Nutri-Lean weight loss package.
Low fat turkey burger image thanks to: http://missbeautyfoodie.com/2011/05/26/crunchy-quinoa-grilled-turkey-burgersc-low-fat/
Food guide pyramid image thanks to: http://www.eternity-fitness.com/services/nutrition/
Well, I guess one does get used to this diet, and I feel better!
I stayed feeling hungry all through the day though, so decided to swap the meal from dinnertime to lunchtime. Much better! The only thing is while the rest of the family is cooking (or making me cook for them!) at dinnertime, I have to be strong because it smells good.
But simply having Aloe Vera Gel drink, the Forever Lite Ultra shake and 2 Bee Pollen tablets in the evening instead of the middle of the day isn’t too bad, because one is usually less active in the evening anyway, and then you go to bed!
Of course if you want to have your 600 calorie meal at lunchtime instead, it also takes some planning, because it needs to be a balanced meal - and usually one is less likely to cook during the middle of the day, especially if you go to work. But there are some lovely and easy food combinations you can create (and take to work), such as: brown or wholewheat roll/muffin, cottage cheese and cucumber, or mixed salad and tuna (you can even have dressing, but simply add less).
Onwards and downwards! (Well, I can’t say upwards, because I want my weight to continue to drop!).
Tuna salad picture: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2284/new-potato-and-tuna-salad
Well, I got through the first two days, and I’m still here, writing this blog, so it must be okay!
On day 3, not only do I get to start having the Forever Lite Ultra meal replacement shake at breakfast (in addition to lunchtime); but I also get to start having a 600-calorie dinner every evening! I’m still drinking the Aloe Vera Gel, and taking the Garcinia Plus (a metabolism aid) and the Bee Pollen (for energy), according to the schedule.
I was really looking forward to waking up on day 3, because I knew that I was having the meal replacement shake, in addition to the other usual items, for breakfast. It makes a big difference!
And I was really happy to be able to eat a real dinner too – but of course some planning is in order, because only 600 calories is allowed. The booklet that comes with the plan has some meal suggestions, as well as an extensive calorie counter of various types of foods. It’s probably worth you investing in a calorie-counting book, listing a more comprehensive range of foods, though, in order for you to plan interesting meals.
In my case, I also have my family, including kids to think of at mealtimes, but as long as I ensure the food on my plate is around 600 calories, they are free to have more food than me, and/or extras that I don’t want or need. For example, dinner on day 4 was baguette with chicken strips, lettuce/vegies and sauce. I had only half a baguette while they all ate more. I even managed 150ml (about half a large glass) white wine within the 600 calories too – drinking a little wine made me feel more like a normal human being as opposed to a dieter!
On day 3, although my dinner was within the 600 calories, and a suggested meal in the plan’s booklet – vegie mince and 2 tortilla wraps, with unlimited amounts of lettuce and raw vegies – I got too full and had slight indigestion! I guess my stomach has already shrunk a little.
I still feel a little tired and slightly headachey around 4pm though, guess that’s my trigger time. Some days, for example on the weekend, I might even have a short nap around that time, because I’m tired enough, but also to pass the time to dinner time. Remember though, that I do suffer from low blood sugar and this means I will suffer the symptoms more than usual. But probably a short walk outside would do more to lift my sagging spirits – nothing too physical, though!
There are also times during the day when I feel like attacking and eating in a frenzy a bag of crisps or something, anything that resembles food, but then I have to remember that I’ll simply slow my weight loss and ruin the end result, so I don’t (so far!). I have occasionally eaten a few dried apricots or a small yoghurt in the mid-morning or late afternoon, when I’m really hungry - which strictly speaking are a cheat, but I figure at least they’re a healthy cheat! There is space in the daily diary part of the plan’s booklet to record any extra food, so that you can monitor it.
Feeling a little more confident. I weigh and measure myself officially again, to record it in the booklet, on day 6. Here’s hoping it’s all made a difference!
Picture acknowledgements:
Food glorious food: http://foodgloriousfood-toto.blogspot.com/2008/09/british-food-fortnight-blogging-event.html
Wine: http://douglasgreen.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/debunking-wine-misconceptions-%E2%80%93-part-1/
