Plan Your Nutrition

The worst thing that you can do when it comes to nutrition is to leave it to chance. If you don’t plan your meals and snacks, you will eventually be hungry at a time where the only foods around you are poor choices. We have all had the experience of getting to work without lunch and someone bringing in doughnuts or cupcakes. If we are in a nutritional deficit, it’s more likely that we will succumb to the appeal and convenience of free food. Eat breakfast and carry your lunch and snacks so that you always have something wholesome to eat.

Breakfast Swaps

One of the worst things that ever happened to the world was the creation of cold breakfast cereals. While there are some that score high marks for nutrition, those are usually high in calories because the serving sizes are small and we overeat them. I love granola but who stops with one quarter of a cup? Not me. I make my own version of granola if I want a cold cereal by starting with oats. I mix in flax, chia, hemp and sunflower seeds and pepitas. Brown Swerve sweetener, a dash of salt and a bit of Maple Grove Farms No Sugar Added Pancake Syrup sweeten it up nicely just before I toast it in the oven.

If you like a quick cup of yogurt in the morning, just remember, most yogurt cups are packed with sugar. Those cups of yogurt are not healthy foods! Buy Greek yogurt made with whole milk and add 0-calorie sweeteners, fruit, seeds, nuts or peanut butter powder to create the flavor palate that you like. I use water enhancers in various flavors to compliment whatever mix-ins that I am using at the time. One of my favorite combinations is lemonade water enhancer with fresh blueberries. If you are hooked on a drive-thru biscuit, I challenge you to make yourself a breakfast sandwich on 100% Whole Grain Bread the night before. It won’t take as much time as waiting in the line at your favorite fast food joint and  you will avoid the refined, white flour that will set you up for cravings throughout your day. If you  like something sweet, like cake, for breakfast, look at our recipes! There’s everything from coffee cake to brownies, all no sugar added.

Lunch

So many people hit the drive-thru almost every day for burgers and fries at lunchtime. If that is your habit, consider getting your burger with no bun. It’s a fairly common order at all drive-thru windows and you will avoid the simple carbs in the bun and still have your burger fix. You can always order the grilled chicken salad but after a while, that gets monotonous. So if you have your heart set on a burger, try it without the bun. Fries are okay just make it a small order.

An even better swap is to take your lunch from home. Make it the night before so that you don’t run out of the house without it. Your choices are unlimited. Almost every workplace has a microwave oven to heat food. You might invest in a backpack cooler where you can carry cold food and keep it fresh. You can carry last night’s leftovers, salads, hearty soups and stews, sandwiches on whole grain bread and specially made items like Fathead Pizza. Fathead Pizza satisfies the pizza craving with no simple carbohydrates whatsoever.  This incredible, easy recipe that stops cravings in it’s tracks!

Fathead pizza 

2 cups mozzarella

1 cup almond flour

1 egg

Melt the cheese slowly in a microwave in 30 second increments. Once it is melted, add the almond flour and egg and mix into a ball. Spread onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet or pizza pan and bake for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven or until browned to your liking. Take out and top with your toppings of choice and broil or bake until it’s the way you like it!

Dinner Swaps

So many people think that dinner time means pasta! Regardless of the choices that you make during the day, if you end your day with a plate of white pasta, you blew it. White pasta degrades into sugar in your bloodstream fast! In no time at all, you will be hungry again and your blood sugar will be peaked with the metabolites of that predigested glue that you used as a sauce vehicle. Instead of this nutritional bomb, try meats and potatoes, carrots or another complex carb vegetable. Add salads or steamed non-starchy veggies on the side and you have a large volume of food to satisfy you all evening. Avoid alcohol. It’s loaded with sugars and lowers your inhibitions to cause you to eat more.

Just say “NO!” If dinner time means pizza in your house, again I urge you to give the Fathead Pizza a try. It’s faster than carry-out or delivery and NO SIMPLE CARBS!!! If you traditionally fry meats, try spraying a well seasoned skillet with olive oil and browning your chicken. You can even brown frozen tenders or breasts this way! You can measure 1 or 2 Tablespoons of olive oil per person into your skillet and brown fish that’s dredged in 1 Tablespoon of corn mesa per person if you like. When you finish cooking, measure the oil and deduct it from the total and you will know how many calories to count. Steak cooks easily in a well seasoned skillet with just a spray of olive oil. Use your imagination to add seasonings and make your food taste great! There’s no need to eat simple carbohydrates to enjoy your evening meal.

Snack Time!

You may call eating between meals snacking but I call it grazing. It keeps me full and much less likely to reach for the wrong foods due to ravenous hunger. Apples are great for snacks because they’re low in calories and have enough fiber to slow the absorption of the complex carbohydrates. Paired with a protein source, such as cheese sticks, they will keep you full for a couple of hours.

Berries in Greek yogurt are a fantastic snack! Berries are low in calories and high in fiber so they fill you up for minimal calories. Paired with the high protein of Greek yogurt, they are a powerhouse of nutrition that is sure to satisfy. If you want a savory snack, put some pepitas, sesame seeds or sunflower seeds into your Greek yogurt. Always get the whole milk version of Greek yogurt. The flavor is neutral and it’s incredibly creamy. If you want to make it sweet or savory, it adapts well to both.

 Nuts are a very healthy snack, but most people have to exercise great caution to avoid overeating them. I tend to stick with seeds instead of nuts. They’re crunchy, versatile and nutritionally dense.

Although celery and baby carrots are an old, well-known snack, you can’t beat their crunch! Add some reconstituted peanut butter powder to the celery sticks for a real treat! The carrot sticks are good paired with cheese sticks for a boost of protein and fiber that will really keep you satisfied for hours.

Avoid simple carbs easily with the recipes that you find on David Way to Health and Fitness. We have hundreds of recipes and only one or two contain refined flour because they are part of a unique recipe. We have Jalapeno Poppers, hearty entrees, cheesecake and  everything in-between.

Don’t go around hungry!