It's a brand new day....no better day to start eating really healthy and feeling better than you have in a long time! In all my previous blogs, I have given you the WHY we should eat a whole-food plant-based diet, (WFPB), now I am going to give you the HOW to get started.
As I have said previously, you can start this way of eating as slowly as you feel comfortable, or you can clean out your kitchen and jump right in. Today we will tackle getting rid of the processed and artificial foods from your diet.
Foods that come in boxes and packages usually have a huge paragraph of all the ingredients in that particular food, ingredients we can't even pronounce let alone know what they are. All that processed and artificial "stuff" is adding to our extremely poor health and stalling our weight loss. When we eat and drink artificial and processed chemicals, our bodies have to "figure out" what to do with it...if it doesn't come from nature, our bodies weren't designed to metabolize it! So, because our body is always trying to protect us from harm, it surrounds this "unnatural stuff" with water and fat cells and "stores" it either in other fat cells, or in our organs. The more we eat this way, the more we have "stuff" stored everywhere making it very difficult to lose weight.
So, let's start with breakfast today. Get rid of the sugary cereals, (not even your kids should be eating that!), and try some oatmeal. Now, don't make a face and say, " but I hate oatmeal"....In the medical practice I work in, that's what EVERYBODY said, and they said it very LOUDLY!! However, I started them out with just about 1/4 cup of regular oatmeal, (not the instant, artificial oatmeal). I have no stove in the office, so I put a small amount of oats in the bottom of a mug, added hot water from the water cooler and just let it sit for a few minutes. Once the oats absorbed all the water, I added small pieces of strawberries, or some blueberries, or even small pieces of an apple, added a SMALL amount of raw honey, and they ate it.
This went on for about a month....then, I decided it was time to elevate them to the next level---STEEL CUT OATS...the Cadillac of oatmeal...now, steel cut oats requires a stove because it needs to be cooked for at least 25 minutes. Now, the texture is different and again I got, "I'm not eating that". Well, let me report that EVERYONE LOVES it and can't believe they have been missing out all this time!! I cook it at home and bring it in a container, split it up between our mugs, and initially mixed it with the oats they were used to, added a little more hot water to mix it again, and then added in fruits or almonds and a SMALL amount of honey...ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Now everyone has graduated to eating just the steel cut oat version.
Now, the same people that "couldn't" eat oatmeal, are now eating steel cut oats and can't wait to get to work to eat it! Talk about a change of heart....
This is what I mean when I say sometimes we have to just start slowly and build from there. If I started with steel cut oats right from the get go, I probably wouldn't have had these results. I started them with a small amount that gradually increased over time....then went to an even healthier version, which everyone now loves.
Why not try something different today....start with breakfast...if you are a coffee and muffin/doughnut/bagel person in the morning, just try some oatmeal. If you can cook it at home and bring it with you, great! If you have access to a water cooler with hot water, mix it at work and let it sit for a couple of minutes. Add some honey and whatever fruit you may have on hand and you have a really, healthy breakfast.
Believe me, that mug of oatmeal with keep you going all through the morning right up to lunch time.....and what will we eat for lunch? Come visit my blog tomorrow to find out......
As I have said previously, you can start this way of eating as slowly as you feel comfortable, or you can clean out your kitchen and jump right in. Today we will tackle getting rid of the processed and artificial foods from your diet.
Foods that come in boxes and packages usually have a huge paragraph of all the ingredients in that particular food, ingredients we can't even pronounce let alone know what they are. All that processed and artificial "stuff" is adding to our extremely poor health and stalling our weight loss. When we eat and drink artificial and processed chemicals, our bodies have to "figure out" what to do with it...if it doesn't come from nature, our bodies weren't designed to metabolize it! So, because our body is always trying to protect us from harm, it surrounds this "unnatural stuff" with water and fat cells and "stores" it either in other fat cells, or in our organs. The more we eat this way, the more we have "stuff" stored everywhere making it very difficult to lose weight.
So, let's start with breakfast today. Get rid of the sugary cereals, (not even your kids should be eating that!), and try some oatmeal. Now, don't make a face and say, " but I hate oatmeal"....In the medical practice I work in, that's what EVERYBODY said, and they said it very LOUDLY!! However, I started them out with just about 1/4 cup of regular oatmeal, (not the instant, artificial oatmeal). I have no stove in the office, so I put a small amount of oats in the bottom of a mug, added hot water from the water cooler and just let it sit for a few minutes. Once the oats absorbed all the water, I added small pieces of strawberries, or some blueberries, or even small pieces of an apple, added a SMALL amount of raw honey, and they ate it.
This went on for about a month....then, I decided it was time to elevate them to the next level---STEEL CUT OATS...the Cadillac of oatmeal...now, steel cut oats requires a stove because it needs to be cooked for at least 25 minutes. Now, the texture is different and again I got, "I'm not eating that". Well, let me report that EVERYONE LOVES it and can't believe they have been missing out all this time!! I cook it at home and bring it in a container, split it up between our mugs, and initially mixed it with the oats they were used to, added a little more hot water to mix it again, and then added in fruits or almonds and a SMALL amount of honey...ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Now everyone has graduated to eating just the steel cut oat version.
Now, the same people that "couldn't" eat oatmeal, are now eating steel cut oats and can't wait to get to work to eat it! Talk about a change of heart....
This is what I mean when I say sometimes we have to just start slowly and build from there. If I started with steel cut oats right from the get go, I probably wouldn't have had these results. I started them with a small amount that gradually increased over time....then went to an even healthier version, which everyone now loves.
Why not try something different today....start with breakfast...if you are a coffee and muffin/doughnut/bagel person in the morning, just try some oatmeal. If you can cook it at home and bring it with you, great! If you have access to a water cooler with hot water, mix it at work and let it sit for a couple of minutes. Add some honey and whatever fruit you may have on hand and you have a really, healthy breakfast.
Believe me, that mug of oatmeal with keep you going all through the morning right up to lunch time.....and what will we eat for lunch? Come visit my blog tomorrow to find out......
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