Important Nutrition Principles
There are some nutrition considerations that will help you with your fat loss. These basic principles are:
- Eat for satiety. This will help you stick to your plan and not cheat. To this end, I suggest eating a lean protein and nonstarch vegetables with each meal. As well, having small, frequent meals often helps (eg. every 3-4 hours).
- Add in healthy fats. These will keep you full longer due to delayed gastric emptying, and are needed for health. A diet too low in fat can negatively effect testosterone levels.
- Cut out as many processed foods as possible. Eating healthy, non-processed foods will provide you with better energy, and keep you full longer.
- Cut out most liquid calories (save these for pre/post workout and milk) as they are not filling.
- Cut out most sugars (except for fructose and lactose - fruit and dairy sugar). These can be replaced with artificial sweeteners. These are "empty" calories which do not increase satiety in any way.
- Drink at least 1.5 gallons (6 litres) of water a day - more if you do a lot of cardio.
- Get adequate protein intake - at least 1g per pound of your ideal bodyweight (eg. if you weigh 220 lbs, but would like to lose 20 lbs of fat, 200 grams of protein is sufficient).
Quality Food Choices
Below is a list of great foods (of course there are MANY more foods, this list is designed to help you choose foods, and is not comprehensive). While you can still lose fat eating just about any food (as long as you are at a caloric deficit), eating healthy foods will increase satiety, decrease hunger, and keep you healthy. For an indepth look at many great foods, see The World's Healthiest Foods.
Healthy Complete Protein Sources:
Lean beef cuts - eye round (often stew meat), top round, round tip, top sirloin, bottom round, extra lean ground round, extra lean ground sirloin, beef tenderloin, top loin (NY strip steak), ribeye steak, flank steak.
Lean pork cuts - pork tenderloin, pork boneless sirloin chop, pork boneless loin roast, pork boneless top loin chop, pork loin chop, pork boneless sirloin roast.
Skinless chicken breast (or skinless boneless), skinless turkey breast
Dairy - skim or 1% milk, fat free sugar free yogurt, fat free or 1% cottage cheese, fat free cheese, fat free cream cheese.
Seafood - tuna (water packed), salmon, sea bass, halibut, shrimp
Venison, Buffalo, Ostrich
Protein Powder
Egg Whites or Whole Eggs
Slow Burning Complex Carbs
Cereals - oatmeal (old fashioned or quick oats), farina (cream of wheat), oat bran cereal, grape nuts
Brown Rice, Sweet Potatoes, Yams
Lower Starch Potatoes - fingerling, round red, long white, peruvian blue, round white, yellow finnish, yukon gold.
Beans - pinto, black, kidney, garbanzo (chickpeas)
Whole wheat or Spinach Pasta
100% whole wheat bread, multigrain bread (which does not list white flour as an ingredient).
Nonstarch Vegetables
Green lettuces - green leaf, red leaf, romaine
Broccoli, asparagus, spinach, bell peppers (green, red)
Okra, spinach, cauliflower, eggplant, zucchini
Onions, garlic, pumpkin, green beans
Cabbage, celery, cucumber
Fruit
Apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, tomato
Peaches, Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
Fats
Natural peanut butter, olive oil, canola oil, flaxseed oil
Nuts - peanuts, almonds, walnuts
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