My clients are all smart women who know the difference between a healthy meal option and an unhealthy one - they know that protein is important for satiation and muscle growth which all helps with staying in a calorie deficit and losing body fat.
But it can be overwhelming trying to find protein-rich meals that your whole family will eat, or reading nutrition labels at the supermarket, or trying to meal prep when you’re on the road morning noon and night dropping kids all over the place to their activities.
If this sounds like you, I have some advice for you - I suggest that instead of getting bogged down in the detail of your weight loss plan, you ask yourself these three questions:
1. "What's essential here?"
2. "How can I let this be easy?"
3. "How can I make this fun?"
What’s essential here?
To answer this first question, let's strip it back to basics. The ONLY thing you need in order to lose weight is a calorie deficit. The protein is great for satiation and prevention of blood sugar spikes, dips and cravings, muscle growth & repair etc - all true. But the top priority, the ESSENTIAL thing is the calorie deficit.
So, while increasing protein and fibre makes it easier to stay in a deficit, technically, it doesn't matter what you're eating or drinking - the only thing that matters is that you don't have too much of it. So focus on that to start with.
Think of your daily calories as a budget. You can choose how you use that budget up yourself and as you track your food, you can use that data to help you make decisions - e.g. observe the calories in each thing you eat and make future decisions accordingly.
How can I let this be easy?
To answer the second question, to let it be easy, you could just eat whatever the family usually eats but track it (in the fit positive app, or even just by writing it down on in a notepad). Creating awareness of our current eating habits is the first step towards making positive change.
If you're not tracking, a really great hack to ensure you don't overeat at mealtimes, is to simply portion the food out according to the number of servings in the recipe, put any extra away in the fridge, and thus avoid going for seconds. Another option is to use smaller plates - this really does work!
If you do want to then prioritise protein as a second step, you could aim to have a palmful of protein (fish/tofu/tempeh/lentils/beans/chickpeas) at every meal. You could also just introduce high protein snacks such as 0% fat Greek yoghurt with blueberries. Small subtle changes like these can be easily implemented but make a big difference to your daily calorie intake.
How can I make this fun?
The key thing is not to take it all too seriously - as women we can tend to do this. At the end of the day, it's a learning experience and learning is fun, so find ways to make it fun, maybe set a daily challenge to reach your calorie goal and see how you get on, one day at a time. Don't be self-critical and don't look for obstacles. We're aiming for progress over perfection!
It's also super important that you DON’T cut out your favourite foods - but you DO want to track them to see how you're faring in terms of your calorie budget - it's yours to use in whatever way you like, there's freedom in that! And just try to get 10% closer to your calorie goal each day.
Also remember that you don’t need to be in a calorie deficit for long - 8-16 weeks MAX. After that you move up to maintenance calories. So if you’re in a calorie cut, don't think it’s forever, it's just a period and then you increase.
I hope you find these three questions helpful - remember not to take it too seriously and have some fun with it!
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