Saturday, January 5, 2008

Food Groups

For the second principle of the Small Step Diet its all about what you eat and when you eat. There are essentially three food groups you need to pick from when creating meals, these are:

1: Proteins - meats, eggs, fish, nuts.

2: Fiberous Carbohydrates - Any Fruit or Vegetable

3: Starchy Carbohydrates - Potatoes, Rice, Cereal whole wheat bread.

Together these three foods form the basic ingredients to make up the optimal nutrients which by working together give your body what it needs to rev up your metabolism. If you're going to eat every three hours, as this diet suggest, it's good to plan ahead. Eating from these three food groups together also gives your body the neccessary elements it needs to sustain it's health. Portions are important because eating too much of one thing will cause an inbalance in overall structure and might slow down your weight loss.

The way you need to approach your eating is by understanding NOTHING is off limits. You may eat anything you wish. What you need to grasp however is to know what you are eating, and how it will effect your weight and health. Two foods which cause your body to gain the most weight and break down your health are Refined Sugar, Saturated Fat. Just because these food are fattening, does not mean you should completely cut them out of your diet. They too have their role in balancing a diet, albeit as little as possible.

Here is a typical schedule of eating times. Let's start with breafast: If I want to eat 2550 calaries a day to maintian my weight, and I'm going to start eating at 7 am. My times to eat will be, 7 am - 10 am - 1 pm - 4 pm- 7 pm. Every three hours, To maintain a weight of 165-170, my calorie break up will be:

2550 / 5 = 510 cals a meal. That's alot, you'll probably eat less than this because you'll have a hard time eating that much in one meal. Portions are important because by observing how much you eat will hopefully get you into a habit of controlling aggressive overeating. I'll give you an example of breakfast and show you how it breaks down calorie wise.

Protien/EGGS: 3 whites 1 w/yolk scrambled = 132 Calories
Fiberous Carb/APPLE: Sliced = 81 cal
Starchy Carb/CEREAL: 1 cup (Honey Bunches Of Oates) w/ skim milk = 170 cal

Calories: 132 + 81 + 170 = 383. I'm short by 127 cals!!

When you add up the calories in this typical breakfast you realize you come up short from your daily target, however it also gives you room to splurge if you're still a little hungry. Another egg white or a piece of whole wheat toast with a little butter is fine. Understand eating every three hours is a key to getting your body's metabolism in a rhythm to help it increase it's burning factor. It's important to get into this rhythm, but if you miss by half an hour or so sometimes, you're not straying too far off the beaten path.

Small, substainable meals are what makes you create an integral habit of learning how to portion your food correctly so you may give yourself the right amount of calories at each meal. The overall calorie intake for the day is important, but the meals and their eating times are what drives your metabolism to work on it's highest level. Getting your metabolismn to burn hot is what we are trying to accomplish.

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