Getting Past the First Two Phases
Strategies for weight loss are just that, strategies. When determining what will work for you, just gathering enough information and putting your own plan in place is basically the best way to accomplish losing those unwanted pounds. Most will just read everything and never do anything! Well reading alone will not burn the fat, nor will it melt away the pounds that have accumulated over the years!
If you chose to implement Phase One and Phase Two, then you now realize just how what you have been eating has been contributing to the excessive weight gain. Once you fully understand where your faults are, only then can you make modifications in your diet to start reversing the process into weight loss.
Phase Three
Similarly to what you have been doing for the past four weeks. Now comes the time to make a definitive decision on what you will no longer eat and what you will begin adding to your diet to get more nutrients into your body. The focus now needs to be on what you ARE going to eat! That is always fun, this is where your creativity comes into play.
You can easily add fiber to your diet in many ways that are not boring. When I first started this, I felt that fiber (also known as “cardboard” in my mind) was the most difficult part of this process. So that is where we begin. There are many fiber rich foods that do not fall into the “cardbaord” catagory. such as, vegetables, rices, pastas, legumes, etc. This next week is “research” week, finding the fiber rich foods that can easily be incorporated into food dishes that you would normally cook and and eat.
The most popular by far is spagetti and meatballs. Using a whole wheat spagetti pasta instead of the traditional bleached flour is the key. Keep in mind that the sause is also something that needs to change a bit. Most sauces that are in a “jar” are high in sugars (high fructose syrup, sugar and just corn syrup), so read the labels! These sugars are NOT good for your system in the quantities that are in each serving of sauce. Meatballs are another “be careful” food for spagetti.
Find a sauce with little or no sugars, usually marinaras are best, and then modify it at home. Add plenty of fresh garlic, fresh basil and Italian seasoning to taste, simmering for at least an hour or more for the best flavor.
Then in the last half hour of simmering add a can of baked beans (no sugar added) to the sauce instead of meatballs. Being careful to stir frequently as the beans will settle on the bottom of the pan and burn. This not only adds more fiber to the dish but also adds the protien that that meatballs would have supplied.
You will be amazed at how filling this dish is, the baked beans truly add more bulk to the dish than the meatballs. If you just “have to have” meatballs then you must be diligent to eat “single serving” portions and not just blindly heap them on your plate.
Get through this week be more creative, do some research for higher fiber foods and start experimenting!
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