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The challenge: to simply your eating habits.

These days, it seems that we usually have to choose between eating unhealthy fast or frozen foods or complicated meals that take us hours to make.  In most cases, people who are trying to lose weight go on these complicated diets, where they are spending hours counting calories, points, or buying expensive bars.  These are WAY too hard to keep up on, think that is why most DIETS fail?

Do you know that you can eliminate stress and be healthier at the same time just by simplify your diet?  By adopting a plain and simple lifestyle for food WILL help you lose weight, save money, and time.

Why make the change:

How can you go about doing all of this?  It seems way too easy.  I have a surprise….it is!  Here are some things you can consider when you go about constructing your simple diet:

• Simple.  Everything should be easy to prepare and not take too long.  We don’t want you to spend hours slaving over the stove.  It should take you less than 10 minutes of time to cook or prep the food.  Stay away from lots of ingredients.  That is not in the mix for a simple food.
• Nutritious.  Even though our American bodies love junk food, it just makes us fat.  And being fat is stressful.  We need to be getting fiber, vitamins, minerals, protein, good fats, into our diets.
• Low in calories, saturated fat, sugar, and cholesterol.

Now that we know what we want to construct our simply diet with, here are some things we want to cut out of our diet:

• Junk food.  This is the obvious.  Although it can be very tasty, it is simply not healthy for us, and it is usually high in saturated fat and sugar.  Plus a ton of other “bad things.”
• Processed food.  No fiber, low in nutrition, high in calories.  Try to get stuff in its natural state, without all the gravies, sauces, and cheeses on top.
• Fast food.  This stuff never comes to any good.  Sometimes you can get a good salad, but it is usually topped with some fried chicken or fatty dressings.
• Red meat.  We don’t need to completely avoid red meat, but it is high in saturated fat.  If you want to eat meat, eat fish, boneless skinless chicken breast, or turkey breast.  You can also opt for other forms of protein that doesn’t have all the fat: whole grains and beans.
• Fried foods. These types of foods are high in saturated fat and calories.  Look for baked or stir fried or even raw.

Now that we have built and weeded out what we can and cannot eat, what do we have left?

Just the basics—-essentials.

If we stock up on those essentials, we can create simple meals that are tasty and easy to prepare.  Then by simplifying your eating habits, you not only shorten your prep time, but you save on groceries, and added fat to our bodies which will make us lighter:)  I have heard people say that eating processed foods is cheaper, but I don’t believe that.  You can stock up on basic foods and still provide healthy, nutritious foods for your family at a cheaper price than packaged foods.

How to make the change:

So what would a simplified diet look like? It would have a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, beans, nuts, whole grains.

Here are some simple meals:

Breakfast: Whole-grain cereals (no processed or sugary cereals), fresh homemade bran muffins (use whole-grain flour), homemade granola, fresh fruits, whole-grain toast with butter, scrambled eggs.
Lunch: Sandwiches such as turkey or avocado with tomatoes and sprouts on whole wheat bread; pita filled with hummus and tomatoes and sprouts and lettuce; leftover soup or chili.
Dinner: Make a big pot of hearty soup.  You can make some of my cabbage vegetable soup ,or make a minestrone type, or a big pot of taco chili.  By making a big pot of soup it can last for days, depending upon your size of family. You can make a  hearty salad with nuts, spinach, avocados, lettuce, carrots and a light dressing.  Steamed veggies with seasoned brown rice (use sesame seed oil and soy sauce or tamari)
Snacks: Fruits, cut-up veggies, nuts, blue corn chips with  salsa.
Treats: Every now and then you need to treat yourself. If you’ve been good splurge on something.  Just don’t make it everyday.  Maybe once a week if you have eaten well.