Enjoy Carbs and Fat while Shedding Pounds Naturally!

You can eat all the food groups as part of a healthy diet that facilitates weight loss. The critical thing to know is that not all fats, proteins, or carbohydrates are the same.

Carbohydrates can be found in real foods that serve your weight loss goals, such as vegetables, legumes (like lentils), and whole grains like quinoa. Fats are essential to consume in the form of fish, nuts, avocado, and olive oil. Protein is necessary and best if obtained from sustainably raised animals, fish, and organic plant protein sources like legumes or tofu.

You are going to use your own wisdom to decide this. When we count calories to ensure we’re restricting them, our bodies eventually respond by slowing down so that we burn fewer calories and make it difficult to lose weight. Our bodies fight against us if we try to limit ourselves. We can naturally lose weight by ensuring we never get too hungry or too full. Our hunger will let us know when it’s time to eat and when we’ve had enough, and trusting our bodies causes us to naturally lose weight.

The most recent studies about exercise show that it doesn’t contribute much to weight loss. However, in people who have exercised vigorously to lose weight, it may help to maintain weight loss. For this reason, I recommend that you de-couple exercise from weight loss and instead exercise to maintain muscle and keep your heart and bones healthy. I don’t recommend you try to compensate for your eating habits with exercise or add exercise you don’t like if your only reason for doing it is to lose weight.

Although weight gain is a complex and multifactorial process, one of the reasons we have gained weight is our reliance on foods that cause increases in a hormone called insulin. This hormone tells us to store fat, not to burn it. When we eat foods with a higher glycemic load, our insulin increases, and the body responds. We can use this wisdom to cooperate with Mother Nature rather than fight against her. Here are a few things you can do to balance insulin:

1. Avoid processed sugars and flours as the mainstay of your diet. If you have a carbohydrate with your food, consume protein and fiber first, then the carbohydrate.
2. Once you’ve eaten, take a 20-minute walk with a pet, a friend, a loved one, your most beloved companion, or yourself.
3. Eat natural carbohydrates with natural fats in combination. Start your day with protein, fat, and fiber.
4. Give your body an insulin break by not eating for 14-16 hours. End your eating by 6 or 6:30 in the evening, and delay breakfast until between 9 and 11 am.

There are few absolute truths about how to eat. Everywhere you look across our vast planet, you will find healthy people eating a certain way that contrasts with other healthy people’s eating.  When it comes to nutrition advice, you can often find one expert recommending one way of eating, and another saying something very different.  Nutrition research is challenging, because there are many differences between us and many variables to account for.

That being said, eating a diet with whole ingredients and minimal processing, one that contains a variety of nutrient sources, and eating with mindful awareness of hunger and satiety cues will align with healthy weight management. If how you’re eating feels right to you and keeps you at a weight that feels like home, you’re on the right track.  When you make choices that aren’t aligned with your ultimate goal, there’s always a reason. Coaching can help you uncover that reason.