It’s raining today… This to me means lying infront of the tv and eating all the wrong foods!!
Because that is what I used to do, today is going to be a fight till I go to bed tonight. I am craving all wrong foods – burgers, chips, milkshake (yes, we used to eat Mc Donalds ice cream when it rains).
I ate my oats this morning and I am starving, it’s been 3 hours. I know I’m not really hungry, it’s the weather thats awaken my bad habits of the past. I will not give in!!!
I read this article now, 11 Ways to Stop Cravings for Unhealthy Foods and Sugar
It helped me to rearrange my focus back to what I am doing and WHY I am doing it.
- To look good
- Feel good
- Be healthy
- Wear nice clothes!!
Doesn’t this look smashing?? Absoluuuutely!!! It looks like something I can put my face in right now! Do I want to? Absolutely NOT!!
It takes 10 minutes (at the most) to finish a burger. Yes it will be amazing but is it worth not being able to wear that nice bikini you saw hanging in the windows of a shop? For 10 minutes pleasure in your mouth? Nooooo!!! The taste goes away but it takes MONTHS of feeling sad, insecure, ugly, fat, uncomfortable – the list goes on….
It’s not worth it. I drank a glass of water and now I am going to take a drive to get my attention away from the cravings. I know it may sound redicilous, “she’s driving to forget she’s craving things, isn’t that a little over the top?” It might be for you, but that helps me. I need to keep busy.
People don’t realise, this is NOT easy, it’s like an addiction and I am getting ‘withdrawal symptoms’, it is raining, these are the days I eat most so I want my food, now!! Thats the feeling, I am not joking – it’s bad!!
But I am in ‘rehab’ for this addiction of mine and if it means driving 100km’s to get my mind of food, thats what I’ll do..but giving in to my cravings, I will NOT do!!!
Happily Ever Healthy 
You’re on the right track! Keep going! And it’s not crazy to drive around to change your mind of things. Whatever works is the way to go!
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It helped.. 😀 When I got back it was time for lunch, even though lunch was healthy, I enjoyed it..
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Hey, there’s nothing wrong with eating every few hours, as long as you’re consuming healthy foods; in fact it’s encouraged by most dietitians, nutritionists, etc. to keep your metabolism pumping.
I was at the co-op JUST reading yesterday an article by a nutritionist in fact saying that the worst thing for the metabolism can be to skip meals/snacks because it actually slows the metabolism. As long yas you’re consuming healthy foods, and and not too much of anything, it’s a good thing to eat evey few hours.
Sounds counterintuitive, but I know it’s the 100% truth because it’s commonly mentioned in all reputable books on the subject, and also from personal experience both for myself and for clients.
You’ve really got to get “the Eat Clean Diet” book by Tosca Reno (not a diet, a lifestyle). She encourages six eating sessions a day to keep stoking the “fat burning furnace” that is your metabolism.
Knowledge is power, (as long as it’s from a good source,) and that’s one of the best books I’ve come across on the subject.
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We do eat like 8am, Oats..Then I usually eat a apple or yoghurt or something inbetween breakfast and lunch but I over slept this morning!!! So we ate later AND I didnt have time to do my workout and I think thats the problem, working out makes me less hungry and I didn’t have time this morning.
Also what I don’t understand is, I see lots of videos of people, they say you must eat like 1200 calories…HOW is it possible to eat so little calories a day with eating 6 times a day. That calorie thing is difficult for me.. bacause I buy for example chicken fillets, now there is fillets, how am I supposed to know what the calories are in one? Or how many tomatoes to put in my salad, or how many of what to put in for it to be the right calories… And thats my problem..thats why I am just trying to eat better and less than I used to and hoping it works because I am so uneducated about calories and carbs, I didn’t even know what carbs are?? I had to google… Do you understand the problem I am in? Haha.. I am just trying with what I know and what I think…
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The apple and yogurt’s a perfect in between snack!
It’s SO EASY to eat around 1,200 calories with six meals/snacks a day (though 1,200 seems low for most anyone, that could be bumped up a few hundred I can imagine, especially during workouts days as you need good fuel to energize your workouts, otherwise your working out on an empty gas tank.
Back the six times a day, equaling, 1,200-1,800 calories or whatever it may be.
SUPER EASY!! Consume more vegetables..they are EXTREMELY calorie poor, BUT extremely NUTRITIONALLY dense!!
VEGGIES, VEGGIES, VEGGIES, (fruits too to a smaller degree).
Example; You could eat 6 ounces of asparagus and you would only be consuming 50 measly calories, but those calories are PACKED with nutrients..You could eat an entire bag of spinach (let’s say 5 oz. looking at my ALDI organic spinach right now..30 TOTAL CALORIES, 4 grams of protein, PACKED with other nutrients as well (including a WHOPPING 260% of your daily intake of vitamin A, 70 of your daily intake of Vitamin C, as well as many other nutrients in lesser amounts.
Now, compare those two foods (totaling 11 ounces, and ONLY 80 calories, compared to say ONLY 1 ounce of cheese (so that’s exactly 1/11th of the ounces that the vegetables are used for in comparison.
1 ounce of cheese=110 calories and 30% of your daily intake of saturated fat!!! That’s over 1/4 of the daily recommended intake of saturated fat..in that measly 1 ounce of cheese (not good).
Did I mention the asparagus and spinach have 0% saturated fat combined? AND only 0.5 grams of fat total between them?
Load up on the tomatoes and veggies, and don’t worry about overconsumption of veggies!
As far as how to know what’s in chicken fillets, excellent question; The ONLY way to know is to look at the nutrition label.
Now, I’m not vilifying fat, there are healthy fats and unhealthy fats, BUT a healthy balance is optimal, AND the small things add up.
Example, chicken’s one of the better proteins to consume, but skin on chicken has 3x as much saturated fat as skinless chicken, plus about 30 more calories per serving, so that small difference makes a big difference over time.
The takeaway most importantly here is that by consuming more vegetables, which are EXTREMELY calorie poor the far majority of the time, while being nutritionally rich, and very fibrous, which means they sit in your stomach longer, and take longer to digest, means that the more you consume of them the less you will crave food in the hours after consuming them, WHICH will reduce the overall calories consumed throughout the day, making your caloric goals easy to achieve.
THAT is how it’s extremely easy to eat six meals/snacks a day and stay within your calorie budget.
The power of vegetables.
THE most important thing you can do is get into the habit of reading nutritional labels. It’s super fun after a little while, and you establish a direct connection with the foods you’re buying and they impact the have on your energy, and desire to eat more foods later.
As you can see I can go on food rants forever, hopefully didn’t fille your knowledge cup too much so that it overfloweth with too much info, but you should print this out and put it on your fridge for a reminder until it’s memorized.
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You just wrote a blog post on it’s own…very good, thanks!!
When I buy chicken fillets, its always without skin. Now that its summer here in SA, we eat more salad? Lettuce, cucumber,tomato etc. Greek salad. With chicken or steak or some meat. Thats our lunch, our ‘big’ meal.
I have another question, if I read the labels, how am I supposed to know if its healthy or not? What amount of what should I get in and what not? Or is that something I must read in a book? Like example, now I look at a lable, it says, sugar, kilojoules, saturated fat all those things.. To be honest it looks like a foreign language to me…how am I supposed to know if what it says on the label is good or not good.. Do you understand? Ai….haha!
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Haha! I’m going to write a post off of the difference between calorically poor and nutritionally poor food, based off this, you nailed it lol! My seconds answer should answer this question (using myfitnesspal.com) because as you log foods, you can see the breakdown of carbs, fats, proteins etc. As for sugar, the less the better, stay far away from that as much as possible. It’s the most addicting substance on Earth possibly. The less the better always, don’t worry about kiljoules, just focus on calories, and carb/fat/protein breakdown (which will all be covered by myfitnesspal.com when you do that two day food log. You should do a post on your logging of that too once you do it, because you will help a lot of your followers by sharing how much it increased your knowledge!
I know what you mean about it looking like a foregn language though, I was there at one point too, but once you make it a habit, like anything else it soon becomes easy!
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1200 calories is not enough. Especially if you’re working out.
If you’re burning 400, I would consume at least 1600 nutrient dense calories. You don’t want your body to go into starvation, which in return will slow down your metabolism and your thyroid… :)))
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I started to feel better this week.. the past 2 weeks I felt as if this hard work is not helping..but I think it is working, I start to feel better.. 😀
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P.S. As far as knowing how much of what is in each food you consume, it all goes back to nutrition label reading. You absolutely have to get into the habit of reading nutrition labels, and then after (only a little while) you’ll start to get an idea of what foods are carb, protein, and fat healthy.
If it’s a carbohydrate, it will typically be in a 1/4 or 1/2 cup amount per serving, so to get an idea, pull out a measuring cup in accordance with the amount of food in the serving to get an idea of what amount of food is in the serving.
You only have to do that a few times to get an idea, and then you’ll have that knowledge with you for the rest of your life!
Also, I would highly recommend making an account (for free) on myfitnesspal.com and doing a two or three day food log where you track everything you eat and drink. It will automatically give you a breakdown of how many calories you’re consuming, and how much carbs, protein, fats are within your daily caloric intake.
It’s super easy to do, even though it takes a bit of patience to look at the labels and punch them in, but once you do that (only for a few days) you’ll have increased your knowledge ten fold on what to consume.
The alternative is paying a nutritionist or dietitian hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to do it for you, but in that case you’re not learning of the direct connection of each food, and thus losing out on empowering yourself to be equipped witht knowledge that you can forever take with you for food decisions in the future.
And you’re working too hard and putting in too much effort to not have the results realized that your deserved of for that hard work and effort!
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Thank you very much, I am going to get that MyFitnessPal and try it for a few days. Since I started my journey I’ve learnt a lot already. So I will take this info and work on it. I don’t want to go to a dietitian because I believe doing it in everyday circumstances. Don’t want to follow a strict diet they give me. I will learn these things as I go, and I thank you, you are helping me a lot
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Woo!! Super PUMPED for you! You’re learning a ton all ready and adding to your knowledge, YOU GOT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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P.S. The greek salad accompanied with a protein is GREAT, actually just what Tosca Reno would recommend; ideally your snacks will pair a complex carbohydrate (vegetable) with a lean protein (skinless chicken, fish, turkey etc.) but perfectly okay to have other kinds of meats too, just always try and go veggie heavy for the most part and don’t overdue the saturated fat heavy food, like red meats, cheese, milk etc.
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Thank you!! Now I know what saturated fatty foods are.. Haha! I am doing that food log from tomorrow to increase my knowledge…
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