Here's the FASTEST shortcut to slimming down with food!
Make the things you used to eat made from grains, sugars, carbs, and even proteins from VEGGIES AND FRUITS. Mostly veggies. No offense to fruits, they just have more of a prominent role in the breakfast/smoothie/snack/dessert category.
Veggies have to be your new BFF to really make your diet not be a diet anymore and work for you. I read the other day that exercise is less than 10% of the results we get in our bodies when we think about weight loss, and FOOD is the rest. I believe this. Exercise to me is just what I do because I can’t stand to sit still, we as humans are not meant or made to be sedentary. We are not forced to be marathon runners either, unless you want to be one (ME!) but movement is NORMAL and NECESSARY. And movement becomes so much easier and more fun when you feel light from the inside out.
So veggies. Yes, my fridge is full of them. I just got deliveries from Costco and Fresh Thyme today and I’m fully restocked. Here are some of the easiest ways that I use veggies to replace other ingredients. And this is not just to bash carbs, it’s to ADD to your body the things it actually really wants. Your body doesn’t really love a grain based pasta or pizza crust, or bread or wrap the way it loves these alternatives.
Some of my go-tos, instead of:
SANDWICHES:
I don’t think I have had a sandwich in 20 years, I never really liked them, and I hate peanut butter so I never did those for lunch as a kid either.
Siete coconut or almond based grain free wraps
Bibb lettuce/Leafy Green lettuce/Romaine lettuce
*if you eat protein, use organic thinly sliced chicken or turkey AS the outside of the wrap, and fill it with sliced celery, cucumbers, pickles, greens
OR use a paleo bread like Julien Bakery or Mikey’s english muffins
PIZZAS:
Caulifoods cauliflower pizza crusts
Make your own cauliflower pizza crusts (riced cauliflower, milled chia, oregano, parsley, garlic, salt, and vegan cheese). Here’s a recipe for my eggplant pizza!
Rice tortillas (still a grain but way lighter) or use the Siete wraps as above
Thinly sliced roasted eggplant slices (MY FAVE)
Mikey’s english muffins
PASTAS:
Zucchini or yellow squash noodles
Sweet potato, carrot or beet noodles
Kelp noodles
Shirataki noodles
Lentil, black bean or chickpea pastas (protein based)
Cucumber noodles (for cold pasta salads)
Spaghetti squash
These are just a FEW of the simple things you can use instead of grain based, flour options. Each time you swap this out, you OMIT refined flours that don’t give you anything but bad carbs, and if they were gluten based, you OMIT the gut inflammation that gets triggered, AND you are putting IN the good stuff.
What does this mean then in your body?
You are pouring in healthy carbs from veggies and fruits that your body uses in MANY ways, vs. a refined carb that your body uses only for immediate energy, and then if that’s not used……stores as fat.
AND
When you consume zucchini or spaghetti squash pasta vs. wheat noodles, you are GETTING the healing, nourishing and anti-inflammatory benefits without any harm. And you feel full. Yum and done.
So compare these two situations:
Person A:
Eats spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, with garlic bread and who knows what else. hopefully at least a green salad.
Person B:
Has zucchini noodles, with red sauce with garlic (no sugar added) with raw spinach folded in (and to be even) grass fed meatballs (note these meatballs are made with chia, herbs, and no breadcrumbs). Also served with a big green salad.
Persons A & B go to bed.
Person A:
Body has to break down the meatballs, the carbs from the pasta and the breadcrumbs AND the bread WAIT while the protein is being broken down. If this person has enough stomach acid this takes a few hours, if this person has bloating/gut issues/overall inflamed, likely the carbs are fermenting in the gut and bad bacteria are now feeding on the waiting to be digested carbs. So the night goes on and the carbs finally get to be worked on. Depending on how much glucose is in the blood already, some of those carbs would have been used for immediate energy but likely not much since most people aren’t that active at night and going for a run post spaghetti and meatball dinner.
So there is excess glucose. What isn’t used, gets circulated and stored.
Person B:
The meatballs are worked on first, but there isn’t any back load of carbs to wait for digestion. Veggies are much simpler to the body because they have more PURPOSE than just being an immediate energy source. Fiber, vitamins, minerals. Spinach is a powerful cleanser, zucchini helps to bust up bad bacteria, the greens from the salad are scrubbing the lining of the gut to keep it clean vs. having pasta with gluten that inhibits absorption.
So the protein is broken down, then the veggies quickly follow. The stomach is lighter faster. THIS MEANS that overnight, your body has NO EXCESS glucose. When you wake up, should you go do a workout, you would be putting your body into fat burning mode right away (cardio).
This is HOW and WHY you can make such huge leaps and see results fast when you simply replace your regular foods with veggies and fruits. It’s about cleaning it all up. Not being a freak about it and not being able to eat pasta or pizza at all, but just swapping things. That is enough. It’s no more complicated than this.
And the way you make it really work, is STACKING DAYS. Repeat this day after day and your body literally will REV UP its metabolism simply because you are giving it less workload and more ammunition. And all this REALLY is, inside the body and out, is increasing energy toward what you want. Better health. Better fitness. Better digestion. You are now playing an active part and role in shifting momentum of energy that formerly was staying the same OR going in the direction on lack of health, inflammation, weight gain, etc.
It’s pretty simple. But you have to do the work, to make the swaps, to shop a little differently, to be more inventive with your recipes and meals. And this is what I am teaching in Fueled & Focused, how to focus your energy into the food swaps and recipes, and ‘ways’ to eat so that you get the most benefit, the fastest results and feel better. All while learning and knowing that this is what your body wants and works with in its natural state. And all our jobs really are, is to act like our most natural selves, and that means, eating real, whole foods, focusing on what we want, knowing we get to be healthy, being nice to ourselves with how we feed our bodies and cells and how we think and speak and act.
I have LOADS of recipes, content and things to tell you about food that will change your life. This gets to be so simple, and so easy, and taste so good. Anything new feels a little hard at first just because it’s unfamiliar. So we are just taking this step by step and making it familiar. So it’s completely second nature to know what to buy, and how to shop, and save the most time. And whip up a meal in minutes, or be able to make food for company without having to go to the store and worry all about it.
Start doing some of the things I listed above. They are SO EASY to do.
And if you want to make plant based eating the way you do food, then join my Fueled & Focused group, 8 weeks with me to help you move through the process of switching things up, swapping things out, SLIMMING YOURSELF DOWN, simply by knowing that FOOD is what makes the BIGGEST DIFFERENCE to your physical body. You don’t have to be a crazy gym rat, unless you want to be. This works.
Jodi :)