6 Weeks “To a New You” Food Guide
6 Weeks “To a New You” Food Guide
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health where you want it.
Week 5
- Keep problem food out of the house. The old adage - out of sight out of
mind - is true. If you know you and ice cream are inseparable, simply do not have it
in the house. Have other treats that are healthier instead.
Benefit:
When you do have the occasional ice cream you will enjoy it so much
more.
Week 6
- Do not let yourself be around people who will pull you down. You need
all the support you can get. Negative people or people who do not take what you are
doing seriously will hamper your results. If there are people in your life who are
sabotaging your efforts then you need to ask yourself if they are true friends. A true
friend will be supportive and stand by your efforts to succeed.
CHEATING (Indulging)
Yes, you are going to slip once in a while. It’s OK as long as you don’t use it as an
excuse to revert to your old eating habits. Just get back on track with your next meal.
Don’t feel guilty, Just remind yourself how well you’ve been doing and give yourself a
pat on the back for coming so far. Learn to reject your old, bad ways — to renew your
dedication to yourself and to the new body and health you are determined to achieve.
HOW TO HELP PREVENT CRAVINGS
BREAK THE CYCLE!
• Food quality: This is the most important factor you can change in the area of
negative food cycles. Avoid all junk food. Avoid all foods that trigger cravings. Avoid
all added highly processed foods. Eat real, recognizable food.
• Avoid all added fats: Added fats and oils can (a) make you fatter faster than
anything else you can do or eat, (b) increase your risk of heart disease and cancer, and
(c) can cause you to crave sweets.
• Avoid sugar: Refined white sugar (table sugar) is damaging to your health in
many ways, and can (a) directly cause weight gain, and (b) cause cravings for fats that
will further cause weight gain.
• Drink plenty of water: This is an easy, healthful way to help avoid cravings.
Often, a perceived craving for food, particularly fatty food, may be satisfied with a cup
or two of water! Drinking plenty of water also helps to naturally control appetite
through a direct effect on the stomach. Always drink pure, fresh water; avoid tap
water laden with chlorine and other chemicals. Aim for at least 6-8 cups of water per
day.
• Try brushing your teeth instead of eating! Often, a craving for a particular food,
especially high-fat, high-sugar food, is caused by something no more complicated
than a bad taste in the mouth.
• Food timing: Do not skip breakfast; this can lead to hypoglycemia and severe
cravings sometime around mid-morning, which may, in turn, cause you to eat
cookies or doughnuts with coffee and sugar, which in turn can set you up for a
roller-coaster blood sugar ride for the rest of the day. Not a good idea.
• Avoid eating anytime within three hours of bedtime. Not eating near bedtime
can help lower your fat levels and can change your eating patterns so that you are
hungrier in the morning, leading you to indeed eat a small-to-moderate breakfast.
This in turn helps control your mid-morning cravings.
• When you need to snack between meals, eat some fresh vegetables, or fat-free
turkey deli slices, or a whole grain (not white flour) product, or some fruit.
• Meal size: A pattern of smaller, frequent meals throughout the day is more
conducive to craving control than a pattern of starvation or mild snacking during
most of the day combined with one large (often very large) daily meal. Studies have
also shown that spreading food intake throughout the day helps in the weight loss
effort, while concentrating calories all in one large meal sabotages it.
• Avoid overly salted foods, if they lead to sugar cravings or if you suffer from
kidney disease or high blood pressure.
• Eat slowly: This will help minimize the effect of cravings, because you will find
that you are satisfied sooner than you would be if you were wolfing your food down.
• Vary your diet: Boredom is what causes most people to abandon their weight
loss efforts. Imagine if you ate nothing but carrot sticks and celery or cabbage soup
for every meal. It wouldn’t be too long before you’d be driving into the first
McDonald’s or stopping at the first bakery you saw. There are plenty of great tasting
foods to give you all the variety you need for the rest of your life. Experiment with
herbs and spices and different cooking methods.
• Try the following trick: Carry with you a small pad of paper on which to write
down everything you decide to eat before you actually eat it. This will introduce an
important time delay during which you are writing down what you’re about to do.
There is a good chance you will often find yourself changing your mind.
NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTATION
It is often thought that a good, balanced diet should contain all the nutrients your
body needs. But in today’s world, with mass food production and soil depletion, it usu-
ally doesn’t. And besides, how many of us really eat a “good, balanced diet”? For these
reasons, and because optimal nutrition is especially important during a period of
active fat metabolism and breakdown, we recommend that a good multi-vitamin-
mineral be taken regularly.
