So, You Want to Lose Weight?
Can you REALLY lose weight on a Plant Based Diet? For real though, no lip service, I want to lose weight. Kickin’ Vegan, Do you really believe that people can lose weight just by changing what they eat?
Fun at the scale
YES!!! LET’S ALL REFUSE TO DIET EVER AGAIN!
Hey, I hear ya. It is so hard to lose weight! But If you listen up, I’m going to give you the holy grail here. Yes, this information has been around since the beginning of time. I didn’t invent it. It is not a trick, or a fad, or a temporary abstinence, or a body system shocker. This is life, man. I for one, want to be able to eat as much as I want without counting anything, who has time for that? I want to be able to do that without repercussion and stay smokin’ hot!
Before you even think of reading ahead, remove any blocks and stories from your mindset that tells you “I can’t,” “I could never,” “but I could never give up…” “I’m just not strong enough,” “but I LOVE…” “but I HATE..” “I have no willpower,” “I’ve tried!” “I’m different, it’ll never work for me.” Yawn.
These are all just made up stories in your mind. You are a full blown grown up, and you can just go ahead and make the decision right now, that you are the boss of you and only you decide what you can and cannot do. Big boys and girls in your big boy and girl pants, let’s ride! You can absolutely do this, you’ll love it, it will be fun, it will be freeing, and you, will be a smokeshow!
We have all heard the saying “abs are made in the kitchen.” Well, that’s the truth! All the workouts and situps in the world won’t undo the damage you’re doing with an improper diet.
The good news? It’s WHAT you are eating that matters! When you move to a plant based diet, it is guaranteed that you will lose unwanted pounds, and you won’t have to limit how MUCH you eat. You will just need to eat the right things, PLANTS!
Key points:
- The fat you eat is the fat you wear
- Carbs aren’t evil
- Processed foods, meats and cheeses will guarantee that your pounds stick around
- Fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and beans
- Fiber is your answer to weight loss, plain and simple.
- Eat fiber, stay hydrated!
Let’s “dig in” shall we?
The Fat You Eat is the Fat You Wear
Truer than true my friend. There are no “healthy oils” when it comes to stripping things down to just an oil. Whether its heart healthy canola, olive, avocado or coconut, oils are NOT whole foods. They are a processed food. To receive the benefit of food, it must be eaten in its whole form. It is 100% okay to eat olives, nuts, avocados, coconuts, and any plant that contains fat. You are consuming a whole food, full of fiber and nutrients, and your body will feel satiated by the bulk of the food. When you strip these foods away and only use the oil, you are mainlining fat with no nutritional value. This is what goes completely onto your body. Every single drop is stored as fat in your fat cells. So cut it out, immediately.
Animal fats are the worst offenders of them all, and the food that comes with animal fat, even in a whole form, has no value for your health. Dairy is especially harmful, with cheese being the number one offender of fat in our diets. What you see everyone wearing, is cheese, which typically contains around 60-70% fat. Eggs are not even allowed to be marketed as healthy, the word “healthy” is illegal to use in reference to eggs, because their cholesterol and fat content is too high.
Fish meat, especially the fat in fish, is highly contaminated with toxins. If you knew what I knew about fish, it wouldn’t ever come near your mouths again, gross. Seriously. Avoid it all costs, especially if you are trying to conceive or are pregnant. It is recommended to stop eating fish for 9 months before conceiving to reduce exposure to mercury.
So don’t be afraid of whole food, eat avocado and nuts, and especially ground flax seed (flax meal) and chia seeds. I eat those every day, as they contains the Omegas we need.
Get rid of all the unnecessary oil and fat in your diet immediately. If that is, you want to lose weight. Confession, we do use spray oil on our cast iron cookware, very lightly. Do not believe the label that says it has 0 grams of fat per serving, they count a third of a second spray as a serving, which has less than .5 grams, so they can legally say 0 grams. It is 100% fat. And just try spraying for 1/3 of a second. How do they get away with it? tsk tsk.
Carbs Aren’t Evil
In essence, neither fats, carbs, nor protein are to blame or to be hailed as the victor. They are all necessary nutrients in our diets, macronutrients. We will get them in perfect harmony and balance when we eat whole food. Where we get into trouble is when we start to process and refine those foods. Steel cut oatmeal and brown rice are awesome filling foods full of fiber. Beets are awesome for you. Fruit is awesome for you. So I can see you might be thinking, these are carbs! Yes! These are nutritious virtuous carbs! They also contain some fat and some protein. They are perfect!
How about white flour? How about white sugar? BAD! This is what most people picture when they think of carbs, white bread, pastries and the like. This is why “carbs” gets a bad rap. These are monsters that throw the whole balance of macros way out of whack. They are stripped of fiber, nutrients, and we can’t feel them make us full. Totally empty calories. Guess what? Just like refined oil, all the white stuff is gonna pack it on. Not as efficiently as fat, but we will overeat when we eat refined foods, because we aren’t getting the filling fiber, not to mention the nutrients. This is why all those white foods say “enriched.” We would literally die of malnutrition if we just ate that white paste and allowed it to pull all the nutrients out of our bodies. They have to enrich it with supplemental nutrients so that doesn’t happen. Then they can spray sugary marshmallow cereal with vitamins and call it a healthy breakfast. Don’t buy into it! (If you want to lose weight)
Processed foods, meats and cheeses will guarantee that your pounds stick around
Strip food of its value, and your body will not feel full. You will go into grazing mode, seeking to be satiated by both filling fiber and nutrients, as well as water, found in whole plants. This is what we call “The munchies!” The only cure for the munchies is nutrients, fiber, and water. Stay hydrated! Drink actual water, not soda or juice or beer. Eat actual food, that contains nutrients, fiber, and water. A cure for munchies? Watermelon! Oranges! Berries! Bananas! Greens! I promise you. And the best part is, no need to count any calories or portions, your body self regulates, since it will feel full. So eat until the munchies go away!
Meat takes forever to digest, and makes us feel sluggish. Cheese, and fish and eggs and all the animals are going to come at a cost, and deplete your energy. Chicken has the highest sodium content of anything we eat, through the practices of animal food production. There is a huge misconception to lose weight by eating “healthy” lean meats and chicken. Just avoid it. We get plenty of protein from plants. Eat your beans and grains and greens! (If you want to lose weight.)
Fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and beans
This is where you need to focus! Fresh fruits and vegetables are chock full of fiber and water and nutrients! Grains are chock full of fiber and energy! Beans are chock full of protein and fiber and energy! All of these contain all three macronutrients. You can eat as much as you want and lose weight. You truly cannot overdo it, BELIEVE me! I have tried! When you try to go hard and over eat, you will feel very full, and not be tempted to repeat the same behavior. So you will eventually start to replace those old habits, that felt so easy with junk food that didn’t fill you up or give you any nutrients, because it just won’t feel the same. You will recognize that you don’t really have the munchies anymore. It also takes longer to eat and chew, so that helps as well.
Fiber is your answer to weight loss, plain and simple
Fiber has so many benefits. Less than three percent of Americans eat the recommended daily intake of fiber. You can tell by watching a few commercial breaks and count how many are targeted for pharmaceuticals and over the counter meds that help us with digestion and digestive related problems. A pill is not what you need to feel better. You need fiber. Not a fiber supplement, plants. Plants are the only source of fiber in our diets. Did you know that many people are not aware that meat does not contain fiber? It does not. Fiber is indigestible plant structure that fills us up, and cleans us out.
Our digestive tracks need to keep moving at a healthy pace. You should be dropping the kids off at the pool more than once a day. You don’t want to keep it inside! Brewing away, getting putrid, clogging up our system, leeching toxins into our body. It wreaks all kinds of havoc in there if we keep it around! Move it along, stay clean! Fiber flushes out toxins released by our filtration system, keeping us from accumulated toxins and illness. It keeps our colon clean significantly reducing our chances of one of the most common cancers. It also moves out the fat! Scrub a dub dub, fat! Get on out! When we keep the digestion train choo choo chooing away, we are going to make sure that we are maintaining a healthy weight, and flushing our systems for optimal operation.
If you experience any discomfort with this portion of the diet change, this is a phase you must endure, and it will be brief. We can accumulate waste for a long time, and that extra fiber is going to take it’s job seriously to get you clean. It’s the elimination of previous ills that is causing the excitement, not the fiber itself. So hang in there, it’ll be alright soon! Think of how this is helping you to lose the weight.
Eat fiber, stay hydrated!
I’ve made the case for fiber clear, but it works best with its ride-or-die BFF, water. See, most plants have abundance of both! But we need to be conscious of drinking enough water to keep our machines running. The water will keep the fiber bulked and efficient, making it work much better. You don’t want to be moving paste through your system. It allows for all of our systems to work better, sinuses, lymphatic, lungs, blood carrying nutrients to all of our cells, and moving toxins out. Water is beyond essential, don’t forget it.
Make your goal to have clear pee. I like to have a reusable water bottle or canteen with me at all times. I carry a 32 ounce bottle with me everywhere, it’s as much a part of me as my phone. And I’m always looking for a refill, like a teenager looking for a charger. Don’t trick yourself into thinking coffee, tea, juice, god forbid soda or alcohol, count as water. Drink enough water, and think of other drinks as a “treat.”
Ok people, now that you have the tools, there’s no time like the present! Make health your top priority and let’s lose that weight once and for all!
Do you need a little help? I got you, Boo!
How about a free kitchen prep guide? 11 pages with photos to help you prep the week and remove temptation, by having snacks ready to grab, and meals ready to throw together. Step by step and easy to follow! I’m here to make it easy for you so you can get to the business of living your best life. Give me your email below and I’ll send it to you automatically, no strings attached! You’ll also be subscribed to my weekly newsletter- a one pager with recipes, fun vegans of Hollywood news, a kid’s corner, and some nutrition easy to use facts to keep you motivated! Unsubscribe any time with a click.
Do it! Do it! Do it! There’s a hot beast inside of you just dying to yell, “check out my guns, son!” Let’s make it happen.
Stay cool, hotness!
Aloha,
Britt -Your Kickin’ Vegan
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