Part 1: What to Eat
You need to eat in a way that will put your body into a fat burning mode instead of a fat storage mode. When trying to lose weight, your main focus should be on how many sugar and carbohydrates are you eating. Sugar and carbohydrates are found inalmost everything. You'll find bread, pasta, crackers, cookies, and candies are carbs. Vegetables and fruits are also carbohydrates but they have naturally occurring fiber, vitamins, and minerals. These make vegetables and fruits a 'healthier carb'. Most vegetables have quite a bit of fiber in them so they will break down (digest) much slower than highly refined/ low fiber foods would. The slower a carbohydrate breaks down (digests) the healthier it is considered to be because it does not spike your blood sugar. In comparison, donuts and chips break down rapidly in the body and therefore spike your blood sugar. Our bodies are designed to handle a certain amount sugar in our blood. Whenever your blood sugar extends beyond the healthy level for you, reactions occur in your body to bring your blood sugar down to a normal level.
Your pancreas is an organ whose job is to control the amount of sugar in your blood. Whenever the sugar in the blood is beyond that healthy level, the pancreas sends out a hormone called insulin (I like to call insulin the sugar police) that grabs up all the extra sugar and carts it away so your blood sugar can go back to normal.
When it comes to losing weight, there can be negative consequences to this normal reaction. If you eat a bowl of pasta, your blood sugar spikes and insulin grabs up all the extra sugar and carts it way to be stored for future use. (You know, for when you are trying to survive through a long cold winter without enough food) Unfortunately, this extra sugar is not stored as sugar. It gets converted into something with a good shelf life, aka FAT.
If you are eating the Standard American Diet (sandwiches, pasta, dessert), then you are constantly eating a diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates. If you’re regularly eating this way, you are constantly spiking your blood sugar and in turn, your body is always trying to covert excess sugar into fat for storage. Losing weight requires you to burn stored fat and that won't happen if your body is storing it away too.
You need to eat in a way that will put your body into a fat burning mode instead of a fat storage mode.
To lose weight, you need to eat a lot of good quality proteins and fats as well as being conscious of the number of carbohydrates and sugar you are eating. Most people find that they should not go above 75 grams of carbs a day to lose or maintain weight.
Professional Tip: Eating a lot of good quality fats will keep you feeling full longer and will prevent you from snacking on those skittles.
Check out our blog post, What is real food, to find more examples of what you should eat!