Big Tips for Healthy Eating for Weight Loss (posted by Janine)

1) Avoid foods with refined sugars and saturated fats - sugar and oil have a tendency to make keep you hungry and are bad for your heart health.

2) Eat whole foods - Whole foods are foods in their natural state that haven’t been canned, frozen, packaged or modified in any obvious way. Whole foods have their nutrients intact and have not been sapped of their natural goodness, so you need to eat less in order for your body to get the nutrients that it requires to function properly. Our bodies feel hungry a lot of the time and we overeat because we don’t feed ourselves enough nutrient-rich foods. Our bodies will tell us to keep eating and eating until our nutrient requirements are met, so much of what we consume ends up being empty calories in the form of “fillers”. By cooking with whole foods, you’ll end up eating less, spending less, and feeling better. Keep in mind that the more heat you add to produce depletes nutrient richness, so produce is best eaten in its raw state if you want to take advantage of full nutritional benefits.

3) DON’T EAT RED MEAT – Red meat is a big jerk of badness. It’s difficult for our bodies to digest, fatty, full of unhealthy hormones, and there are plenty of delicious alternatives that you can find in poultry and fish. Note: I once read a PETA pamphlet that said that if an 8 month old baby was given the same daily hormone dosage as a factory farmed chicken, the baby would weigh 1600 lbs. Bad food for thought. Best suggestion would be to try to eat as many vegetarian or vegan meals as possible. Reach for the tofu. It makes ya toot, but it’s good ta boot! I can offer suggestions on cooking with tofu if you’re not a fan. Jess also knows an excellent recipe that is kinda like a dairy-free lasagna. So delicious!

4) Lose the trans-fats - Trans-fats are fats that come from hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated oils are added to so many foods to make them have a certain consistency, as preservatives, and as cheep fillers. Problem is that our bodies don’t know what to do with these trans-fats and our bodies will just store it as fats. Trans-fats have no nutritional value. So read labels. If anything in your house or shopping cart contains trans-fats or any kind of hydrogenated oils, get rid of it. First place to look is your margarine as this is a huge culprit. There are plenty of brands of margarine that do not contain trans fats. Becel has a few options. Even straight up butter could be a better alternative (though not recommended).

5) Avoid eating lots of dairy – Dairy is high in fat. Sure people talk about calcium and whatnot, but there are plenty of non-dairy sources of calcium out there. Many soy-based products are fortified with calcium. Broccoli is said to contain as much calcium, gram for gram, as milk. So reach for a nice cold glass of broccoli juice!!! Refreshing!

6) Screw you, Wheat Flour! – It seems that there is an increasing number of the population developing intolerances to wheat. This no surprise. Wheat is very processed and modified, and is more filler than a nutritional powerhouse. Eating lots of wheat won’t necessarily fill you up. It will just increase your appetite. Try to choose alternative grains (rye, kamut, spelt, oat, rice, soy) or whole grains. Even most rye bread his more wheat than rye flour… so make sure you check.

7) Read Labels: Ingredient labels list ingredients from most to least. Buy products with smaller ingredients lists things that you can recognize. The less chemicals and preservatives the better. You can’t always trust the chemical/drug companies to add safe things to our foods, because they’re more in the business of making a profit. Years down the road we’ll likely discover that there are many common chemical additives in foods that we eat everyday that are causes of cancers and illness. Simple and natural is best.

8) Consume more of the following: Fresh fruits and vegetables (organic where available), brown rice (great for intestinal health), extra virgin olive oil, water, yogurt.

9) Eat less or none of the following: Aspartame and other synthetic sweeteners, refined sugar, meat, dairy, wheat, fast food, take out, junk food.

NOTE ABOUT FAT CELLS: What I've heard about fat cells is that they will multiply and increase in size as you gain weight. But when you lose weight, the fat cells do not just disappear. You still have the same number of fats cells. What happens is that the fat cells just decrease in size. So though it's very easy to gain weight do to fat cell reproduction and inflation, it's much harder to lose the weight when the cells are always existent in our bodies. This is why people end up getting lyposuction. They are not only trying to remove unsightly fat from problem areas, they are also trying to drecrease their number of fat cells. It's a little scarey to think about it, but it's also good incentive to stop creating more fat cells all together, cause it just makes it easier to gain weight again once you've lost it. Does that make sense?