One of the biggest causes of weight gain is the food we eat, and to most of us it’s obvious what the better options are, how much of it we should eat, and how often, but you might also be surprised to know that there are actually some people out there who have no clue about proper nutrition. Most of these people are older, and don’t have much experience with the internet, so their diet is simply a product of what they were raised eating, and what they have grown into eating throughout their life.
For example, room mate one is nearly 60, a busy body, she walks back and forth to work, and stays moderately active, she also only eats once a day. For years, she would wait until just before bed, fix an entire box of pasta with some canned tomato sauce, and eat it all before laying down. Despite her slow and steady weight gain, she didn’t view this as poor nutrition, and her Grandson ate even worse. Their issues were usually finances, and time, as the only adult in the house, constantly working meant she had to throw whatever she could afford in the oven to cook quickly so he could eat. At the time of their first devastating doctors visit, her 13 year old grandson would eat 2 whole boxes of mac and cheese, a half a box of fish sticks, and some french fries for one meal. She didn’t see an issue with it at all until the doctor did blood work, and she came home in a panic. He was diagnosed as a type 2 Borderline diabetic, he weighed almost 300 pounds, and he had an underactive thyroid. His Grandmother, though she is the best person I know, wasn’t sure at all what to do, in the matter of a day she had multiple people giving her contradicting advice, she was sure she couldn’t afford to feed him the right way, and convinced herself, in a spiraling panic that it was all hopeless and he would die.
I had always had an interest in health foods because usually those sorts of meals are colorful and I truly enjoy cooking, but more than that I found in this a bigger reason to fix my own weight problems, so I offered to help, to teach them and guide them, and to do it with him so he didn’t feel so alone. The first few months, we rarely exercised at all, maybe 10 minutes a day, I really tried to focus on the proper nutrition, and at the time it seemed that his grandmothers rebellious mindset got the better of her, because as I tried to cut out unhealthy food from his diet, it seemed she just brought more of those sorts of things into the house, and often ate them infront of him without any apparent concern. It didn’t last long, her trip to the doctor in June of 2020 had some worrying results for her as well, not only was she told she was a borderline prediabetic, but she had cholesterol problems, and an issue with her blood pressure, so she joined in our new eating habits as well.
So, before we go any further, I want to take a moment to tell you what this meal plan is not.
- A diet
- Keeto
- Noom
- Shakes supplements, hacks or cheats
- Specific to diabetics or anyone with any sort of health concerns
- Giving up your favorite foods completely
- Calorie counting
- Measuring
- Looking at food labels very much at all.
This is simply, proper nutrition, what our bodies need, which much of time depends on how much physical activity we do through the day.
The draw backs?
- You will not loose weight quickly.
- It can sometimes be abit hard to judge portions, and a lot of it can be guess work.
- Slightly more expensive
- Time consuming
The benefits?
- No complicated calorie or carb counting.
- Easily have meals out at restaurants.
- Simple adjustments for holidays and events
- No need to completely give up any of the foods you love.
- a truly life long healthier lifestyle
First let’s take a look at Meats.
Good:
- Turkey
- Lean cut steaks
- Chicken
- Fish
Believe it or not, there are a lot of turkey substitutes, and although it is abit of an adjustment, if you play with the flavors and add some seasoning or sauces, you can truely come to love things like Turkey bacon and ground turkey in place of regular greasy fatty bacon, and hamburger meat.
Bad:
- Hamburger meat
- Pork
- Most red meats
Next we’ll look at what we’ve come to call in my house hold heavy carbs, these are the foods which really dont do a whole lot more for us other than filling us up. We don’t completely cut these from our diets, but you’ll see in a section at the bottom how we do limit them.
- Potatoes
- French fries
- Chips
- Stuffing
- Crackers
- Bread
- Tortillas
- Rice
- Pasta
Other foods we try to limit reasonably are those with too many additives, sodium, or just generally seem to processed and changed for a prolonged shelf life or ease of use. Again, this is not a diet which takes anything away entirely, but rather focuses on having smaller amounts. The following are foods we normally don’t use a whole lot of.
- Can foods
- Vegetable oil, canola oil, lard, butter
- Pop
- Sugary foods
- Processed freezer foods
The last topic I want to cover is how I try to portion our foods (No I’m not always exact, and just being realistic no one is.) We plan our meals out 1 week at a time, but we don’t count Mondays, that’s our whatever day, so we go Tuesday through sunday.
So, my breakfast meal planning usually looks like this, and serving sizes I try to just keep in mind that whatever I put on plates should be able to be eaten in 10-15 minutes.
Breakfast:Cereal or protein bar.
Breakfast: Yogurt bowls
Breakfast: Cereal or Protein bars
Our mornings are normally sort of hurried, between 6 and 7 Everyone gets up, takes their medicine, prepares for exercise and school and eats in a 1 hour period, so every other day we take the easy way and eat something like cereal or a protein bar that can be gotten and swallowed quickly, while not requiring that I cook or have much of a clean up.
Lunch I give slightly bigger portions, but I also don’t put many carbs in it, most often we have a salad day where everyone can build their own, I like to have small simple veggies, these are some of our most common lunch items.
Lunch: Simple salads
Lunch: veggie bites (baby tomatoes, cucumber, mozz balls and a lunch meat roll up)
Lunch: Zucchini burrito boats
DInner is different, When it comes to fresh low carb veggies, I dont limit portions at all, However much is made is what is available to be eaten. Usually I will use this simple sort of method, One meat and two sides, most days those sides are fresh low carb veggies, but we do 3 heavy carbs a week for dinner, so normally fresh veggies are the biggest portion, meats is the next smallest, and heavy carbs I do go by serving sizes on the packaging.
Here are some of our most common Dinner picks
DInner: Crack Chicken Chili
Dinner: Ground Turkey Mexican Quinoa bowls
Dinner: French onion chops and veggies.
For some people this is confusing, for some it’s common sense, wherever you fall, the simplest way to understand it is that, instead of constantly restricting the amount of food we eat, we focused on eating foods that are better for us, and limiting foods that are bad for us. I hope this has helped you, but if it hasn’t feel free to contact me and ask any questions you may have.
GettingOurShitTogether 