Now you’ve read the full ebook, you should have a good idea of how to start eating cleaner and getting more nutrition in your diet with fewer calories.
There was a lot to take on board there though, so if you’re floun-dering to know where to start, read on and this guide will talk you through it…
Cut Back
Perhaps the easiest place to start is by cutting back on the unnec-essary empty carbs and simple sugars in your diet. Identify and eliminate processed foods and anything that you suspect isn’t pro-viding your body with useful materials.
For example:
- Stop drinking sugary coffee
- Stop adding sugar to tea
- Avoid soda drinks
- Stop snacking
- Get smaller crockery and plates
Add
Now try and add things back into your diet. In the place of those unhealthy simple carbs, start trying to eat healthier fruits, vegeta-bles, organ meats, proteins, fish etc. Mix these into healthy and tasty meals that you can actually enjoy and eat them more slowly! Don’t avoid fats either – they will help you to better absorb the nu-trients and will keep you feeling fuller much longer…
Calculate
The next thing you need to do is to calculate how many calories you are burning in a given day. In other words, you need to calcu-late your ‘AMR’! This is your ‘Active Metablic Rate’ and as long as you consume fewer calories than this number, you will continue to lose weight.
Men:
BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)
Women:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
To turn this into your AMR, you then multiply that amount by:
- 1.2 if you’re sedentary (little or no exercise)
- 1.375 if you’re lightly active (you exercise 1-3 times a week)
- 1.55 if you’re moderately active (you exercise or work about av-erage)
- 1.725 if you’re very active (you train hard for 6-7 days a week)
- 1.9 if you’re highly active (you’re a physical laborer or a profes-sional athlete)
Organize
Now you know what your target should be, it’s time to start eating meals that will fit the target! Before we can do that though, we need to learn how to make tasty and healthy meals in less time – by organizing the kitchen and our cooking schedule!
These tips can help:
- Invest in the right appliances – a food processor makes cooking healthily a lot easier!
- Clear space
- Put things you’ll use frequently in places that are easy to ac-cess
- Cook large pots of food and then freeze/chill them to eat throughout the week
- Learn a few ‘fall back’ meals you can always rely on
- Stock your cupboards with capsule ingredients
- Tuna cans
- Baked beans
- Chopped tomatoes
- Tinned fruits
- Puree
- Pasta
- Rice
- Sweetcorn
Consistency
If you try and be too strict with your dinners, you will often find that it’s too hard to stick to your diet and you fail. Instead then, aim to be more consistent by eating the same breakfast and lunch every day or rotating between a few selections.
Know precisely how many calories and what nutrition is in each of these.
Now you can be a bit freer and experiment when it comes to din-ner, knowing that you have X amount of calories to play around with!
Easy Lunches
Don’t have time to make yourself elaborate Greek salads every morning? You’re not alone! Fortunately, there are plenty of alterna-tive strategies:
- Find a salad bar somewhere
- Find a lunch deal with cheap sandwiches/smoothie
- Sign up to a program that will deliver ready-made diet meals to your door
Meals Out
When eating out, some tips include:
- Sharing a dessert with friends
- Focussing on how you feel when you over-indulge
- Researching meals before heading out
- Having a coffee instead of a large pudding
If you follow all these steps then you should now have a diet that is low in calories (lower than your AMR) and that’s relatively easy to stick to without having to count! You’ll also be getting a balanced intake of nutrients to help you feel fuller and live healthier. Best of all… the food will taste great too!
