Ya Gotta Eat!!!

Have you ever heard that before… on an eating plan? YA GOTTA EAT!… Remember way back when… when we all thought we needed to be hungry all the time to lose weight? Remember when the daily meals consisted of half a grapefruit for breakfast, some awful cabbage soup concoction for lunch and some carrot and celery sticks for dinner were gonna MAKE SURE we were skinny by Friday?


Those days are OVER!!! YEAH!!!!!!… Finally, people realized that to burn calories, and to lose weight, you need to keep fuel in the tank. Of course… it matters what kind of fuel we use. I’ve said over and over and over again… staying away from processed, unhealthy, and sugary foods is the best plan of defense to shed unwanted poundage… so it goes without saying that… hellooo… that is still the rule…

Why eat to lose weight? Why isn’t it that hunger pangs all day aren’t smart… to remind us of how well we are doing on our DIEt? Well, quite simply… if you want your car to run, you have to put gas in it… it’s the same for our bodies… if we want to be able to do all we want/need to do in a day, and to make good food choices all day, every day, we need to eat to keep up with our body’s metabolism. We need to put energy in… so we can expel that energy to do what we must…

I have found, on my eating plan… that if I don’t eat enough during the week, I WON’T LOSE ANY WEIGHT…

My Plateau… the one I finally broke after two months? Yeah… I looked back at my journal, and I wasn’t eating enough to sustain myself those two months. I was eating… but I wasn’t eating FULL meals… I was eating maybe a cup of coffee and a cup of blueberries in the morning… when I should have added a banana to that to help sustain me. For lunch, I wasn’t eating enough beans, and eating too much salad, so I wasn’t full for long stretches, and ate too much in the evening meal of fruit, to make up for my lack of food in the most important part of my day… the morning and midday meal…

Once I figured it out… and got back to eating the right way, I dropped 4 lbs in a week. I was eating all the right foods… just not enough of them at the right time of day… and my body was going into starvation mode, and holding on for dear life, the weight I so wanted to lose… My body wasn’t getting the calories it was used to… and it panicked.

Now… I find that I am not hungry in the evenings any longer, and I only eat something so I don’t wake up at 4 a.m. starving. So I eat a small bowl of frozen blueberries, one at a time, savoring the sweet goodness, while I watch my favorite evening shows.

I can’t WAIT for watermelon season… THAT is my favorite fruit to eat at night. Last summer, I would buy 6-8 watermelons a week, all at once.. and cut up one whole one a night for all 5 of us to eat for dinner. My kids are the MOST happy when watermelon is their dinner. HOW’S THAT for brainwashing!!! I would sprinkle in frozen blueberries and frozen mango for color and tartness, and we’d all fight over it… and each try to get the most… it sad and funny at the same time… LOL!

Here’s what a typical day could look like for you… if you follow this plan… (I’ll do one with bread and one without)

No Bread, Dairy or potatoes Plan

Breakfast = fruit… all you want until full preferably between 7 a.m. – 10 a.m.

Nothing in between…

Lunch = Salad, dressing (lowfat, homemade preferably something with olive oil and vinegar) 1-2 meat patties, veggies, beans, soups, etc… EAT UP! (preferably between 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.)

Snack = some sort of fruit only if your are famished

Dinner= fruit till full, or veggie soup, or veggies, or salad (but fruit first)

With bread or rice

Same as above.. except eat the bread with breakfast or lunch… NOT BOTH.. .and not after 3 p.m. (Note.. this is NOT a “Let’s Do Lunch” idea… it’s my own, you won’t find it in the book)

Fruit for dinner is the KEY to this plan. If fruit doesn’t float your boat… have a nice salad, or corn or peas, or beans… just be careful of the oils and fats so late in the evening…

***Sometimes, you can switch your lunch for dinner and eat out with clients or family… but restaurants ALWAYS have the ability to make dishes to order, and have lots of sides that are veggies, or nice big salads you can order with dressing on the side….

It’s not a big deal, if once in a while, you eat two meals with protein in it… at lunch and at dinner… no food police are gonna come and bash in your door… just do the best you can, and make good choices and you will see the weight come off… and you will be sooo happy… your blood pressure will be happy, your blood sugar will be happy, your scale will be happy… YOU will be so healthy..you won’t know what to do with yourself!!!