While I do want to try to lose weight, I don’t want to put too much thought into it because it never works out in my favor. So I’m taking it easy and starting with trying to eat healthier, and that pretty much started yesterday lol.
My car’s having transmission problems (where it doesn’t like to shift gears—it’s automatic) and I can’t get a mechanic to look at it until the 18th, so even though I’ve been driving it to work, I’ve decided to try to eat at work (instead of going home) on my lunches and to do that, I have to bring lunch from home.
Between yesterday and today, I went ahead and made salad—nothing but veggies. Now, I like salad, but usually with a heavy dose of ranch dressing. But I know that ranch dressing makes it unhealthy, so I did something different:
Lettuce.
Slices of cucumber.
Slices of bell pepper (I used red bell pepper, but I have yellow as well).
Olive oil everywhere (I’ve heard ice-pressed is the best quality)
Matcha green tea
Loose leaf black tea
Raw avocados
Sweet Potatoes
Natural fats (e.g. butter)
Natural, unsweetened yoghurt
Wild herbs
Deep sea fish (be careful with mercury content)
Just as important, unhealthy food I’m keen to avoid…
Flour and gluten. Spikes insulin, ruins intestine lining
Nightshade plants
Starch foods (sweet potato is okay)
Peanuts…they’re a vegetable and have an enzyme linked to cancer…
Refined sugar. Nothing good comes from sugar
Fruits. Same effect as sugar
High-carb foods. Tricks your body to burn carbs not fat for fuel
Breakfast, or late dinners. Aim for at least fourteen hours a day with no eating
Processed foods
Soy
Coffee. For some reason it makes me sleepy, prone to headaches, and I have trouble with eye focus…Tea is much better…
The jury is out on honey. It’s loaded with natural sugar and carbs, but it is also healthy. In a concentrated form, honey is used as a healing agent. Also, mead (fermented honey) is Viking fuel.
Kidding, eat a lot of lean meats (like chicken, turkey, etc), leaves such as kale, spinach, rocket (ones with nutrition), and sweet potatoes instead of normal ones; use stevia (cold pressed) instead of sugar, don’t use artificial sweeteners at all, dark chocolate and olive oil are good (like @MatthewJH mentioned above). If you’re gonna have coffee, make sure it’s freeze-dried (you can get it freeze-dried in the supermarket too), eat plenty of pulses, green tea, natural yogurt definitely, strawberries, fermented foods like kimchi, saurkraut; probiotics like yogurt, spices like ginger and chillis, and definitely drink as much water as you can to flush out your system.
I am trying to eat healthier and cleaner as well, and eat less junk food because it makes me feel better. The salt especially, in junk food dries me out and the carbs bloat me a lot. Good luck with eating healthier. As for meals, you can get a lot of inspiration online for clean, healthy recipes.
Bone broth. It tastes so good - partly because it does actually taste good, but also because it’s packed full of nutrients so your body is like, ‘Give it to me!’
Electrolytes (water with salt, magnesium, potassium). Better hydration than plain water.
If the food comes in a package, it has a very short list of ingredients - all of which are actual real foods (not numbers, chemicals, words I’ve never heard of, etc.)
And agree with everything on @MatthewJH bad list. In particular, fasting is the best thing I’ve done for my health these last 3 years - I probably fast at least 18 hours a day most days. It’s so simple/easy/cheap but so effective.
Uh? That has to be commonly sold in your country right?
I mean in America, where can you even find that for a reasonable price? Sorry, if that came off as rude or something.
Any local ‘game’ meat should have the same health benefits as 'roo meat. Lean, dense, high in iron, almost no fat or water content (better weight / nutrients / dollar value than beef). In my experience kangaroo meat can be tricky to cook…takes a long time to heat through, and the tight fibres make the steaks chewy…
Oh, don’t overcook steaks. Heat is the nemesis of protein. Also, the liquid that leaks out of cooked steaks is, I’m told, the fluid used to transfer oxygen from blood to muscle (quite healthy).
Update: Kangaroo leather is softer and stronger than cow leather too. Great for clothing or bags.
But aren’t fruits healthy? Like they may be high in sugar, but it’s natural sugar. I have heard that having too much fruit is unhealthy, though. Though, personally, I’m more of a veggie person; I used to love fruit as a kid, but I had one too many apples and bananas and I got sick of it growing up.
I have heard that coffee—or any kind of caffeine—isn’t healthy or at least, not truly good for you, specifically for those who tend do drink it too much and rely on it to keep them awake. I remember reading this one scientific article that said if a regular coffee/caffeine drinker stopped drinking it, they could have a heart attack… or something of the sort. Plus, there’s a lot of sugar in them which doesn’t help.
I’m a big steak person, but only when cooked right. Chicken becomes my second favorite, specifically when it’s full of flavor. My sister made a chicken dinner last night where she baked it with mozzarella cheese and tomatoes and it was freaking delicious! So much flavor, filled with juices… it’s become one of my favorite chicken meals!
What they do, most often, is cause you to be hungrier: what happens after that is the really unhealthy part. The faster something you digest hits your system and messes with your insulin, the quicker you yo-yo, and you’re adding an extra burden to your dietary choices due to feeling like you’re starving far quicker. Fruits are slower than most processed sugars because they are with fiber which interferes with fast absorption, but they are still a heavy sugar source.
Despite this, there are some fruits that have their glycemic index, just on their base sugars, yet they mess with your sugar far less than they should: that’s berries.
When you’re first getting in control of your blood sugar fluctuations (which even non-diabetics have, especially in rapid dietary changes), fruits aren’t a great idea.
This is why people talk about good fats and protein in these early shifts because they take a lot longer to process and absorb, which stabilizes you in a dietary shift.
If you read up on keto ice creams, you see the sugar listed as a dietary fiber with an alcohol based name. Fiber pushes it through and doesn’t count as a sugar, even if it’s under the nutritional sheet for sugars.
Now, no one needs carbs at zero because there is a minimum daily requirement, but honestly you can get the amount you need from broccoli.
But there is a point where people just get hyper-zealous with it.
As a general rule, any food (or food element) that converts to glucose / fructose (little molecular difference between them) in your system, that in turn increases blood insulin and insulin resistance, are to be avoided. In this regard flour (and grains*) are worse than sugar.** Refined sugar also promotes tumour growth, so I don’t risk any sugar.
An apple a day keeps the doctor in business.
*Buckwheat is fine / a recommended alternative. Himalayan Buckwheat is one of the world’s most beneficial and nutrients dense plants.
**About two years ago I stopped eating grains (including all rice) and gluten, and now I can’t go back. Every time I eat pasta my stomach feels like I’ve gulped down half-set concrete…and my skin itches when I sweat (cold showers and zero gluten is the only cure I know for this)…
Soil health is equally important to plant and meat quality. Mono-crops do not benefit anyone (no bio-diversity in the soil = no nutrients in the produce = poor stomach health). Mixed crops are the way to go. Also, animal meat is known to possess / transfer the positive or negative health qualities of the animals’ food (even the anti-oxidants of tea)…Good produce in, good produce out…
Oh, I’ve heard there are plenty of essential natural fats (esp. marine Omega-3, prerequisite for brain health) but few if any essential carbs (that your body can’t produce by itself as needed).
Plus, there’s a lot of sugar in them which doesn’t help.