Plant Based Tips for Healthy Weight Loss

Losing weight is the most popular goal for most Americans. We know it is the #1 New Years Resolution. That just goes to show you how difficult it is. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, how much education you have, where you live, what your job is – losing weight can be a battle. 90% of the people who go on a diet to lose weight fail. They gain back the weight and often times even more.

My first piece of advice it to stop dieting. Yes that’s right – stop dieting. Diets don’t work long term. The definition of dieting is “A regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one’s weight by going on a diet.” Who wants to do that? Who can sustain that for long term?

From a size 14/16 to a size 4 and maintaining my weight loss for 6 years!

We have to adopt a lifestyle that we can sustain for the rest of our lives. It is our healthy daily habits that will help us to lose weight and sustain that weight loss.

When you choose to follow a whole food plant based lifestyle that promotes optimal health weight loss is a wonderful side affect.

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Set Yourself Up For Success

One: Clean up your environment. Get rid of processed foods and junk foods – even the vegan junk food in your house. Fill your pantry, fridge and freezer with healthy whole plant foods that are optimal for health and weight loss.

Two: Watch my Calorie Density Video so you understand what to eat and why.

Keep your food choices under 600 calories per pound for optimal health and weight loss. They also happen to be the most nutrient dense foods.

Three: Make your plate at each meal 50/50. Half non starchy vegetables and half starch. Add fruit for sweetness. Get rid of salt, oil and sugar from your food. The bowl of food above is sitting on one pound of chopped salad. Include starch in every meal. Potatoes offer the most satiety on the satiety index as discovered by Dr. Susanna Holt. Eat potatoes! Complex carbohydrates release energy over time, they fill us up without filling us out.

SOS is the international symbol for distress. In our plant based world it stands for salt, oil and sugar. These are highly refined food substances that don’t provide nutritional benefits and in fact can lead to dietary distress.

Automate Your Meals

Eat basically the same thing for breakfast every day. Eat a big salad with starch for one meal a day. Have soup, vegetables and starch for your third meal. This method cuts down on decision fatigue, makes grocery shopping easier and meal prep less time consuming.

Variety encourages over eating. People who have multiple choices at a meal tend to over eat. It is called the buffet affect, too much variety stimulates the appetite and causes over eating. Eat simple, clean and easy meals. You can vary your variety of plant sources from meal to meal to get a well rounded supply of plant based nutrients.

Four: Batch Cook your food. If you have your fridge full of healthy food, you will eat healthy food. Save time by cooking things in batches. Why bake one potato every day when you can bake a weeks worth at once. Batch Prep Salads so you can eat a big beautiful salad every day.

Each individual eats about the same amount of pounds of food day after day. How many pounds varies from person to person. Tom eats more pounds of food each day than I do. So if we reduce the overall calorie density of the foods we eat we can reduce the overall amount of calories with out having to reduce the volume of food we eat. This will automatically lead to weight loss without making you feel deprived or leaving you hungry.

Five: Use some SOS Free Sauces to Make Delightfully Delicious Dishes! Include fresh and dried herbs to make your food taste amazing. Fresh lime and lemon juice, flavored vinegars, salt free seasonings, onions garlic, and peppers add so much flavor. You won’t miss the salt.

Well Your World products are whole food plant based SOS free. They are available to order through our Well Your World affiliate link.

Six: To weigh or not to weigh? This is an individual choice. For some people who let the scale rule their life and their daily mood it would be best to get rid of the scale. For others it can be a helpful tool. I will let you decide what is best for you. If you choose to weigh, Dr. Doug Lisle recommends to weigh 3 days in a row once a month and average the numbers.

Seven: Don’t use food for entertainment. Get your dopamine hits from something other than food. The affect of dopamine from food only lasts about 3 minutes.

Go for walks, take up a craft, do volunteer work, listen to soothing music, dance, do yoga, meditate, walk the dog, talk to a friend, clean house, play with the grandchildren. Find things to keep you busy. We love to hike and walk in nature.

Eat when you have true hunger. Use food to fuel for your body.

Eight: Take a 30 day break from eating in restaurants. It is difficult to get healthy food in restaurants that is SOS free. If you have to eat in a restaurant order a salad, bring your own potato or other starch, beans and some vinegar to make the salad filling and delicious. Suggest to your friends that you do something other than eat out. Meet for a walk instead. Post pandemic take a class together, join a team sport, join a bike club, volunteer and help others.

Nine: PIP It! Take a potato in your purse when you are going to be away from home for a several hours. It travels well, is filling and satisfying. You can always stop at Wendy’s to buy a potato or two if you need to.

Ten: Get some daily movement. This isn’t for weight loss and it’s not a punishment. Exercise is stress reducer, it releases feel good endorphins and it pleases our internal audience. If you exercise first thing in the morning it sets you up for success all day long. It helps you make better choices through out the day.

You don’t have to be perfect – we are focusing on progress. Don’t give up if you slip. Just do the next right thing at the very next meal and don’t let a slip turn into a slide. You can do this. You deserve the very best health and a full and happy life.

Get Healthy ~ Stay Healthy ~ One Meal At A Time

Watch this entire presentation at the beginning of this episode of Nutmeg Notebook Live.

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We are also Holland Bowl Mill Affiliates. The 15 inch Holland Bowl Mill Cherry fruit bowl has a permanent home on our kitchen island. It’s beautiful and useful. The heart shaped bowl makes me happy – I love everything heart shaped! We use our 15 inch Beechwood & cherry bowl (his and her’s) to chop our salads everyday. Eating a salad for one meal every day helped me lose weight and become a size 4. I still eat a salad for one meal a day but now it’s a Big Beautiful Chopped salad and it helps me stay a size 4! See the Chopped Salad Blog Post to find out how you can incorporate a chopped salad into your daily food plan and how you can get a free mezzaluna knife with your Holland Bowl salad bowl order when you use our Holland Bowl affiliate link as well as free engraving and free shipping.