The beauty of this system is you will be eating every 2 1/2 hours from the time you get up until bed!  To keep your metabolism running at optimum speed and to keep a steady blood sugar, plan 6 meals roughly the same size and evenly spaced throughout the day.  Personally I eat breakfast at 7am, a morning snack at 9:30am, lunch at noon, afternoon snack at 2:30 or 3pm, dinner at 5pm or 5:30 pm, and an evening snack around 7:30.

On a 1200 calorie diet, each meal is roughly 200 calories. On a 1800 calorie diet each meal is around 300 calories. Sometimes I move 100 calories around here and there. For example, I may reduce a snack by 100 calories so I can have a bigger lunch or dinner. Think about the time of day you are hungriest and plan your food accordingly. I am famished in the afternoon, but not as hungry for dinner. So my afternoon snack is my largest meal of the day.

Weight loss is based on calories burned vs. calories taken in, so if you keep your consumed calories under what you burn, you will lose weight, regardless of the types of foods you eat. But eventually making poor nutrition choices will catch up to you. If your body becomes depleted enough it will send the starvation signal to your brain, your metabolism will slow and you will start to gain weight even on a low calorie diet.

This is why I encourage friends to include ample sources of lean protein into their weight loss plans. Your body absolutely cannot create protein and if it is needed for cellular repair and not available nutritionally, your body will use its own lean muscle mass to harvest the protein it needs. If you take in too much protein your body can use it as an energy source. It takes more calories, water and calcium to digest protein than it does to digest carbohydrates. So taking in extra protein results in less weight gain than taking in excess carbohydrates. On the other hand, If your body gets too few carbohydrates it can take the energy it needs from the fat in your body!  

Since I recommend an ample supply of protein during weight loss, I also encourage you take in plenty of water and calcium (in the form of green veggies or a supplement) to keep a proper balance in the body.

There are certain vitamins that only come in fat.  These include vitamins A, E, D and K and Omega Fatty Acids.  I include small amounts of healthy sources of fat in my diet, such as egg yolks, nuts, salmon, butter and olive oil to provide ample sources for these vitamins.  Since I am pregnant I also take an Omega fish oil supplement just to make sure.

Carbs aren’t completely taboo, but I like to get most of my carbs from fruit and vegetables.  They are high in vitamins and fiber but low in calories.  I supplement these sources of energy with a few whole grains for a balanced nutrition.  When I reach my weight goal, the only change I need to make to my meal plan is to add a few more servings of whole grains for proper weight maintenance.

In each of my meals I include at least 2 different types of food.  For example I may have a protein and vegetable such as a Salmon filet with steamed green beans, or a fruit and a fat such as an apple with peanut butter.   I plan my meals separately from the rest of my super lean and fit family, but usually what I eat is some form of what they do.  For example if the family is having tacos on whole wheat taco shells, I eat a taco salad, skip the shell completely and reduce the amount of cheese.

I could go on forever talking about this….but we have all month :).  To help you with your meal planning I have two FREE downloads for you.  The first is a No Calorie Counting guide to meal planning for weight loss.  In this guide I recommend servings sizes and types of food and how many from each category for the day. There is also a huge long list of free foods and an interesting paragraph on calorie free or negative calorie foods.   Depending on your choices this plan will build a 1200-1460 calorie diet for you.  There is also a handy check list at the end to print for each week.  When you eat something check it off and you’ll be able to see at a glance what you have left to eat.

To download right click and save to your computer: Non Calorie Counting way to weight loss

The second download is a weekly meal planning guide divided into 6 small meals (or you may choose 5 slightly bigger meals).  In this guide write specific amounts in each day such as 1 cup of skim milk (80) and 3/4 cup of bran flakes (96) in the breakfast column.  If you are counting calories, write the calorie total for each meal cumulatively in the right hand column.  I also like to write the individual food calories in paranthesis next to the food in the menu section as shown above.  This helps me memorize the calories and serving sizes of the foods I eat most often.  If you are using the non counting method, leave this column blank.

To download your menu planning sheet right click and save to your computer:  Fit and Fabulous Meal Plan Sheet

Tomorrow we’ll discuss one easy but important thing you can do to keep yourself from failing in your quest for fitness.

Tomorrow