Enjoy Every Day!
Enjoyment is not usually associated with weight loss. I well remember my childhood when I learned that weight loss was punishment for being prone to gain weight. The “diets” that I endured were torture. Almost every food that I liked was immediately placed on the “forbidden” list and my life revolved around baked fish, plain ground beef patties, boiled eggs and salads without dressing. Those experiences taught me that I had to suffer to be at a desirable weight. Negative reinforcement does NOT work well on most people, and I am no exception. At David’s Way to Health and Fitness, we teach weight management by learning how to live your best, healthiest life in a sustainable way. We believe that the enjoyment of food should be central to weight management.
Outdated Thinking
Weight loss has always been referred to as a four-letter word, D-I-E-T! Losing weight has been accepted to be a miserable, temporary, self-inflicted torture that you have to struggle through from time to time. Everyone dreads it and hates to even discuss it. If a doctor dares to bring it up, he will automatically be referred to as a “quack” who “blames everything on weight”. In the wake of this negative backlash against all things moderate, many doctors have quit even bringing up the subject. They know that, in most cases, it’s pointless. In times past, not only would they bring it up, they would hand you a sheet of paper with a diet on it and tell you to come back monthly for check-ups. Most of the time, the patient was just infuriated and found another doctor.
The idea of “starvation” was just too horrible to address. When the diet started, hunger, irritability and sleeplessness were expected, and swift to begin. The only way that this nightmarish scenario can culminate is in “failure”. We are geared to crave comfort and sooner or later, we will abandon the torture of a restrictive diet for the familiar foods that we crave.
New Day for Easy Weight Loss!
Here at David’s Way to Health and Fitness, we believe in eating enough nutritionally dense food to stay satisfied and feel good. Counting calories is a sure-fire way to know exactly how much you are eating. It takes the guess work out of the equation. Added sugars add huge amounts of calories with little to no nutritional value. They also cause an insulin release into your bloodstream which lowers your blood sugar. When that happens, you get hungry and feel justified to binge. Added sugars also increase inflammation in the body which is the beginning of most disease. We advise you to avoid added sugars for tall of these reasons, unless your doctor advises you differently. ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR MEDICAL DOCTOR BEFORE BEGINNING ANY WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM.
Unfortunately, if you have “spent” your calorie allowance on sugary foods, you may not have enough calories left to satisfy your hunger, so you very quickly exceed your calorie budget and weight loss becomes impossible. Obesity is associated with increased disease risk, so added sugars contribute to the disease process in multiple ways. If you fill up on junk foods, you miss the nutrients in good, whole, healthy foods. Our bodies need a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals and trace minerals to stay healthy, so filling up on junk that is devoid of nutrition not only contributes to obesity, it also starves your cells of everything they need for health.
Sustainable weight loss occurs as a result of packing in all of the delicious, nutritious food that we can “afford” within our calorie allowance, not by deprivation. Learning how to thrive within the framework of a healthy diet is key to health, happiness and longevity.
Breakfast
This is part of my son’s breakfast this morning. I made those sugar-free pancakes from this recipe and topped them with sugar-free chocolate syrup! Lucas has lost about 30 pounds and has about 30 to go. At 28, he has decided that he wants to get healthy. If his diet consisted of boiled eggs and dry toast, that would NEVER happen! My son is autistic and he’s not eating anything that he doesn’t like. I added a banana, a glass of milk and cheese on the eggs. Deprivation leads to failure. Lucas has a way to go yet and when we get there, he needs to maintain the new weight.
The pathway to health has to be wholesome AND delicious or he will detour. We have a recipe for Sugar-free Snickerdoodle Pancakes that are wonderful! Find a way to eat the foods that you like. If you need a recipe or information on how to find a product, comment here. We will be happy to help you!
Lunch
This is mine and Lucas’s lunch today. I made Quick and Easy Beef/Vegetable Soup from the recipe here and omitted the okra and green beans. Lucas is not crazy about the okra and honestly, I just forgot the green beans! I used 93% Lean, Organic, Grass-fed Beef and when I browned it, I left it chunky. This meal is hardy! Although we don’t eat cornbread as often as we once did, I had some left-over and it complimented the soup nicely. Those are 2 cup servings that fill you up and satisfy you for hours. I added grated mozzarella cheese to Lucas’s bowl for a finishing touch. He also likes it with Heinz No Sugar Added Catsup on the side. You can find the review for that here.
You may see a pattern developing here. The pattern is a day full of delicious food with NO deprivation. Download the My Fitness Pal app and start counting your calories. If you need an idea of how many to eat, ask your doctor. You can also get an idea here at our Calorie Counter Pro. AVOID EMPTY CALORIES if you want to lose weight and stay full and satisfied while you’re doing it! AVOID ADDED SUGARS!!! They make you hungry and cause cravings that you cannot control. Our sugar-free dessert recipes will not do that. Enjoy them and count the calories.
Snacks
Full-fat, plain Greek yogurt is a high-protein base for any flavor palate that you care to create! While we do not advise honey added to yogurt, as in this picture, you can add sugar-free syrup if you like. I add nuts or seeds if I use syrup and create a “Maple Nut Sundae”. You can add flavored water enhancers to create a “Lemon Pie” ( Mio Lemonade), peanut butter powder and your sweetener of choice to make a “Peanut Butter Pie” or anything that sounds tasty! Just avoid added sugars! Berries are wonderful mixed in. Even fresh pineapple works. Add cinnamon and apple cubes for “Apple Pie”. Get creative and see what you can make!
Apples, cheese sticks and pepitas are fantastic to see you through the afternoon. Stay well hydrated to maintain a sense of fullness. David wrote an excellent article on hydration that you can read here . Please remember that diet drinks of all kinds will help you to stay satisfied, hydrated and full between meals. The argument that artificial sweeteners are “worse than sugar” is absurd. It’s hard to even address it in a civil manner. If you ingest excess calories through sugar sweetened liquids, you are contributing to obesity which is a health hazard. If you have a personal sensitivity to ANY food product, don’t eat or drink it but artificial sweeteners are perfectly fine for almost everybody. Excess calories are not. I use Splenda and Swerve and if I should drink a soda, it will be diet.
New Ideas for Easy Weight Loss!
Nowadays we have “new” ingredients and recipes that make virtually all foods, diet foods! This luscious pizza slice above is from a Fathead Pizza that I made last night. The “dough” is made from mozzarella cheese, almond flour and eggs. It is topped with sugar-free pizza sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni. It is not low calorie but it is very low in carbs. Due to the high protein and fat content of this pizza, you really can’t eat as much as you can wheat flour based pizza. I ate this one slice! I was once a size 22 and I DO know what eating a whole pizza is like. There is NO WAY you can do that with this pizza. You get your pizza fix for about 300 calories.
One slice of most pizzas from pizzerias is about 400 calories. Add extra cheese to mimic the amount of cheese on this pizza and you’re up to at least 450 per slice. That extra 150 calories might not seem like a big deal but who stops with ONE slice at a pizzeria? Nobody. Half of that pizza will cost you about 1800 calories. See the difference? Take control and learn about new ingredients and ideas.
Explore the Store!
We have recipes on this website for almost anything that you might want to cook. These recipes are healthy and sugar-free. Go to the search function at the bottom of the page and search for whatever comes to mind. We have all kinds of special occasion recipes and every day delicacies. If you want a recipe for something else just ask. We will do our best to help you, AT NO COST (FREE). Reconsider traditional foods that are a calorie and a financial goldmine. Eggs, oats, sweet potatoes, Greek yogurt, beans and apples are wonderful sources of nutrition that you can work into any budget.
If you have not cooked before, start. It’s not hard. Trial and error will be your best teacher. Almond flour can replace wheat flour in most recipes and there are multiple 0 calorie sweeteners to choose from. Find the one you like the best. I buy sugar-free pancake syrup and either make my own pancakes from scratch or buy Birch Bender’s Keto Pancake Mix. There’s sugar-free chocolate chips and sugar-free chocolate syrup and caramel syrup. Top a good no sugar added ice cream with either and you will never miss the sugar. I like Breyer’s Carb Smart but even Klondike makes a No Sugar Added Klondike Bar. Swerve Brown Sugar Replacement is as good as brown sugar in everything that I’ve used it in. Read, ask questions and pursue new ways of fueling your body.
ALWAYS count your calories. Accountability is everything.
The days of cottage cheese and dry toast are far behind.
You CAN do this.
Get started.