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Obesity

How To Stop Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Goals

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“We all can’t help everyone, but we can all help someone” is a phrase that I came across recently that really rings true for me.

I know that I can’t change the world or get everyone eating I talk to eating healthy, but I feel it’s really important to share knowledge and help others. I’ve always been an extremely inquisitive and curious person, and whenever I learn something new I just feel the need to share it.

So if I can make a difference for just one of you today with this post, I’m going to do it.

First, I’m going to start off with a basic assumption: I know you want to be fit and healthy. Who doesn’t? But it’s not very easy to be once you’ve learned some bad habits is it?

We really want to change and have more energy, lose the weight and feel great. But something happens along the way…

You may or may not know what it is, but I think I know.

We tend to get in our own way and kind of sabotage ourselves, whether it’s subconsciously or not.

Let’s take a look at the some the top reasons we prevent ourselves from reaching our goals when it comes to achieving health and weight loss.

-Bad Attitude & Negative Perspective
-How You Talk To Yourself
-Wanting to Look Good To Impress Others
-Lack of Preparation and Planning
-Lack of Motivation

Bad Attitude & Negative Perspective

Your attitude about diet and lifestyle can stop you from succeeding before you even get started.

What not to do:

As dieters, we can have this attitude that eating healthy isn’t attractive. That the food doesn’t taste “good enough” as what we’re used to, that we’re deprived from our favorite treats, and somehow we’re being punished for our sins until we can drop the weight or gain our health back.

Then once we’ve achieved our goal we hope we can have a few treats again and relax a little.

You might even be telling yourself or others “Oh I can’t have that any more, I’m on a diet!!!”

Let me tell you from personal experience, this approach does NOT work.When we look at our new food as “the enemy” or not as good as what we used to have, we start to feel upset and stressed and resent it. And this can leave you seeking solace in your old favorites, trying to comfort yourself to feel better or feeling depressed and frustrated day after day.

What to do instead:

Change that attitude into a positive one.

Say to yourself something like, “I want to turn over a new leaf and start choosing foods that are not only delicious but are good for me and make me feel good.”

You know some of your past food choices haven’t been ideal. That’s ok. Today is a new day and try to have a positive attitude just to try it out. If you have to, fake it til you make it.

Try to look at your situation as wanting to be kind to yourself in a different way, a better way that not only keeps you healthy but brings more to your life like energy, happiness and longevity.

Try saying to yourself “I can eat whatever I want, but I want to choose foods that are healthful instead”.

Turn the negative into a positive. You make the decisions for you. You decide what you eat, and you choose different foods that are healthy, they are not forced upon you. Keep it positive and avoid any negative talk or attitude about your plant based meals.

By the time you get used to eating new healthier foods, your tastebuds will have caught up with you and you’ll realize these foods do actually taste pretty good, better than you thought they would.

Wanting to Look Good To Impress Others

Let’s face it, sometimes we can be a little insecure and vain.

We look at pretty and attractive people on tv and in the magazines and we can start to envy them.

Surely we would be happier if only we looked like them right?

What not to do:

You try to convince yourself to eat better and start exercising so you can dress to impress and look good for your spouse or flaunt it in front of friends and acquaintances.You think having people envy you will make you feel better about yourself and that should be motivation enough to stick to a new plan.

The truth is you’re actually sending a really bad message to your subconscious.

That somehow because you’re not currently getting praised for your looks or health that you aren’t worth it and if you were that would mean you were a success and make you feel better about yourself.

This is a bad situation.

The person who should care the most about your health is yourself. No one can force you or motivate you better to get healthy than yourself. Trying to diet or lose weight for someone else will not work for very long and soon you’ll be back to square one and still feel pretty crappy about yourself.

What to do instead:

Realize that you are the best motivator for getting healthy. Tell yourself that you want to get fit and feel great because of what a positive effect it will have on your life.

Get excited about all the benefits you will have by getting in shape and eatingbetter.

Things like:

-more energy
-better mood
-clothes fitting better
-being more outgoing
-feeling confident about your body
-wanting to dress up and go out
-not feeling guilty about food

All of these things will be a much better at motivating you to get healthy than just to look good for someone else or impress acquaintances and strangers.

Feed your soul and not your ego and you’ll naturally feel this positive shift in your perspective and behavior.

How You Talk To Yourself

This will predominantly concern women as we tend to be very critical of ourselves and expect perfection.

What not to do:

You look at yourself in the mirror and feel hopeless and depressed. “How did I let it get this far?” you might ask yourself. You don’t feel worthy, you feel ashamed and suddenly you just want to sit around and open up a tub of ice-cream to console yourself.

If you ever feel like this please do not lose hope. The problem is not what you see in the mirror. The problem is what you are saying to yourself and how you are treating yourself. The mirror is only a reflection of your previous behavior. You’ve made yourself feel unworthy of health and success somehow turned to food to help fill the emptiness or sadness you feel.

What to do instead:

Realize that you are not the sum of what you see in the mirror. There is far more to you than what can be seen on the surface. But you need to look at that reflection of yourself as your friend, actually your best friend.

If you’re not your own best friend, don’t expect anyone else to be able to treat you better than yourself. Look at yourself and say “I accept myself unconditionally as I am right now.”

It helps if you can say this at least 5 times a day.

Even if you feel silly, even if you think it’s a lie, please just try it.

It helps to train your subconscious to associate your image with love and acceptance, instead of shame and guilt.

Visualization is highly beneficial for success. If you have any other conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer you can use positive affirmations to help
your body heal as well. Envision yourself at your ideal body weight and in perfect health. Try to think about yourself like this throughout the day.

It will send signals to your body that will help you achieve your goals.

Lack of Preparation and Planning

What not to do:

You buy a bunch of recipe books or you spend hours online looking at recipes you want to make only to let them sit there in the back of your mind “to try one day”.

You don’t make a shopping list of items to buy, and you don’t really think about when you’ll go grocery shopping or when you’ll have time to make lunches or dinner.

So you come home from work, stressed out and feeling guilty and you order take out or pull out something unhealthy from the freezer to reheat.

You tell yourself “maybe next week I’ll do better… but I don’t know if I can do it.”

What to do instead:

This is something I really had to work on myself.

When I have been most successful in eating healthy I’ve prepared all of my meals at home, and brought food with me wherever I went.

1. Find some recipes that you want to make for the week. Plan out some simple meals like smoothies or oatmeal for breakfast, soup, stews, wraps or sandwiches for lunch and some casseroles or entrees for dinner.

2. Write down all the ingredients you need to buy and plan 1 or 2 times that you can shop for groceries. If you plan on making a lot of green smoothies or salad it helps to go twice a week as sometimes you can run out of fridge space for those bulky items.

3. The last step is to schedule some cooking/prep time for meals. If you don’t make time for this you really won’t be able to succeed and you risk having your produce go to waste.

Even if you have a busy work schedule or family life, try to find 1-2 hours at least 2-3 times a week that you can dedicate to creating healthy meals. Just take it slow, start out with a few recipes until you get the hang out if it.

If you make sure you have healthy meals already prepared in the fridge you are more likely to eat them whenever you get busy and stressed. Don’t let yourself get to the point where you’re starving, cranky and there’s nothing ready to eat in the fridge so you go out and get some fast food instead.

Anticipate those situations that make it easy for you to feel tempted to grab take out or fast food and be prepared.

Every time you have one of your healthy meals instead of something else, smile and praise yourself a little. You’re on your way to success!

Lack of Motivation

You may feel a lack of motivation towards many things, exercising, grocery shopping, preparing meals, eating healthy
etc.

Try to determine the root cause of your lack of motivation.

If you’re just too tired, try to go to bed a little earlier and get a little more sleep. If you feel uninspired or afraid of trying something new, ask your spouse or a friend to do it with you for moral support. (This could be exercising together, shopping together, cooking together etc).

You can also meet like minded people on websites such as www.meetup.com if you’re looking for some activity partners or veggie enthusiasts to talk to.

If you feel like you don’t have any time to work out, look at your schedule and plan all your other activities out and then see where you have some time. Even if you just
make time 30 minutes 3 times a week before work or after dinner to go for a walk or a light jog it will make a difference.

The key is to make realistic goals and start out with what you can manage and stick to it.

Studies have shown that once you have created a new habit and stuck to it for at least 21 days, it becomes almost second nature and is very easy to keep up.

The hardest part is going to be getting to that 21 days. But just take it one day at a time and praise yourself for the little victories along the way.

So now that we’ve covered some of the mental blocks that might be preventing you from being successful at a health new life style, I want to encourage you to remember the important things I’ve covered in this post.

-Start having a positive attitude with healthy food

-Don’t change for anyone else, change for yourself

-Accept yourself for who you are today

-Plan ahead for success

-Make time and get motivated with friends
or loved ones

While I can’t personally coach everyone on living a successful lifestyle (I’m still working on myself too!) I can help you when it comes to making meals with my mouth watering plant based dishes.

My Low Fat Vegan Starter Kit is the perfect way to get started in this journey.

100% real food, with no oil, and no processed ingredients.

All with tantalizing photos to inspire you every day. Best of all they are omnivore and picky eater tested and come with a 100% 60 day money back guarantee so it’s risk free to try.

Get the Low Fat Vegan Starter Kit here:

http://www.plantbasedu.com/LowFatVeganStarterKit

And I want to say thank you for all that you do by reading my emails and blog posts because without you I wouldn’t be able to reach out and help the world.

So in turn we are helping each other. 🙂

P.S. If you’ve already bought one of my ebooks in the package you can definitely upgrade to the whole package at a discount. Just contact me and I’ll give you the
details!

Don’t Be So Sure Sugar Is Making You Fat

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I was watching this series on Netflix this week called “Freaky Eaters”.

It’s a little bit of a buzz word title for a show I know.

No they don’t eat weird things like spiders or insects or anything scary.

They just have severe eating disorders where they compulsively eat junk foods all day everyday.

One middle aged women was so unhappy in her life that she found happiness only eating candy, chocolate, cake and cookies every day and nothing else.

Another middle aged man only ate plain cheeseburgers 3 meals a day. He was afraid of all vegetables and couldn’t even let a tiny strand of shredded lettuce touch his bun without being paranoid it would alter the taste of his burger. (It also looks like he ate fries and a cola with his meals as well.)

A young 20 something year old ate nothing but pizza (of any kind, restaurant, fast food microwavable) for 3 meals a day. He actually made himself so sick that he was throwing up every morning and could no longer play volleyball, but he didn’t think it was in anyway related to his diet.

The last woman I watched was another 20-something who lived at home, and was completely addicted to Coca Cola. It was so bad that she was drinking upwards of
30 colas a day or more and she denied that she had any kind of problem. (She also ate twinkies, ho ho’s, oreos and chips for her meals)

Now these are all extreme cases. My gut tells me that this is not that wide spread. These are severe food addictions and since it is “reality TV” it’s probably embellished a lot to make it look more dramatic.

One thing that I noticed was though that the two women eating and drinking nothing but sugar and white flour were not really overweight.

The one soda girl was told she was pre diabetic but miraculously she didn’t have it yet with all the cola she drank. She was also a normalweight.

The man who ate the cheeseburgers and fries every day was actually diabetic and veryvery overweight.

This is not a scientific analysis by any means, it is just my observation.

But the body actually has an easier time burning off excess sugar (even if it’s white refined sugar) than it does excess calories from deep fried foods(and oil and cheese).

These two women who were not overweight, ate in excess of 6000 calories a day, almost all coming from simple sugars like white flour and white sugar.

Even the young man eating pizza all day every day was not overweight, he was normal weight. (He ate a lot of white flour in the form of pizza crust 3 times a day so it was still a substantial amount of simple sugar.)

So this is why I find it is SO IMPORTANT to teach people to cook without oil and  get them off of eating fried foods day in and day out.

If there is one type of cooking that is REALLY holding you back from weight-loss it is that super high calorie fried food.

That means any of your favorites such as:

-fried chicken
-french fries
– “fish and chips” 
-potato chips
-tortilla chips or “Doritos”
-donuts and fritters
-hush puppies or fried corn cakes
-onion rings
-fried calamari
-fried mozzarella sticks
-anything battered and fried

HAVE GOT TO GO! Right now.

I’m dead serious!

If you are still eating any of these foods they are seriously sabotaging your health and your efforts to weight loss. I suggest not letting them even be an option
for you when making food at home or going out to restaurants because deep fried food is highly addictive.

If you eat these foods regularly, you are likely to not stop at just one piece, or one bite. You might even feel compelled to eat the whole plate. (Often very quickly and it disappears right before your eyes…)

And when you eat these foods regularly your body will actually CRAVE them.

We are still designed to seek out the highest calorie dense foods, as if we were living in the wild trying to stave off starvation.

So super salty, fatty and rich foods make our brains and bodies go crazy, that once they get some they want more and more and MORE.

The most important thing to do when trying to give up a food addiction is to make it very difficult to get. This is SO important.

That means get any and ALL of these foods out of your house right now!

(Even if you have a spouse or children who want to eat these foods. It’s just too tempting for you to eat them if it’s around). Don’t allow these foods in the house. If someone wants to eat them they should be eaten outside the house only occasionally, thus making it harder for them to get instead of always being in the cupboard or freezer.

That also means not going to you “favorite” restaurant where you typically get that fried chicken, fried fish etc. Try an alternate route if you often drive near places that cause you to feel tempted.

Don’t walk down the junk food aisles at the grocery store, stay away from the convenience store and don’t go down the frozen meat and frozen french fries aisle.

The best way to succeed is to replace these bad habits with good habits.

 

-Find a new favorite meal to eat (and of course make sure it’s healthy.)

-Find a new place to eat out at, (that is of course healthier too.)

-Only shop at the healthy parts of the grocery store such as the produce aisles.

You cannot expect to change and lose weight and get on track if you are in the same situation every day and doing the same things.

You need a fresh start.

And the first thing I want you to do kick is fried foods to the curb.

ALL of them.

They are the most addicting because they combine crunchy and salty flavors that make you eat more and are filled with white flour and oil (the two highest calorie nutrient devoid foods.)

We can work on the rest later.

But if you’re concerned about high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes etc., and want to lose weight, you’ve got to ditch that fried food.

The best way to do succeed is to find and learn some new healthy recipes that you and your family will enjoy.

So that’s why I’ve put together my Low Fat Vegan Starter Kit.

It’s full of recipes you can use for breakfast, lunch and dinner to get back on track and to start losing that weight NOW.

It just takes a little bit of trying and a desire to make changes in your life for the better.

I’ve already done all the hard parts of figuring things out and creating delicious healthy meals.

All you have to do is buy the ingredients and follow the instructions.

Just go to:

www.lowfatveganchef.com/LowFatVeganStarterKit

If you want to do something good for your health, start by taking out the #1 unhealthy type of food.

No more fried foods. Especially battered and fried meats and cheeses. Those are the worst.

It actually could make a big difference for you.

I bet more than a few of you have a hard time resisting eating these foods compulsively when you see them.

It’s ok. We’re wired to want more of these foods when we have them regularly. So you just have to start removing them from your diet and the cravings will
go away.

Just like any other addiction like alcohol, drugs or cigarettes. You have to stop ingesting them to get rid of the cravings!

How can you possibly stop this addiction if you keep purchasing these foods instead of learning how to make healthier new foods?

I can help with that.

Just go to:

www.lowfatveganchef.com/LowFatVeganStarterKit

And take charge of your health today…

I know you can do it!

Sincerely,

Veronica Grace

P.S. If you’ve already purchased one of my ebooks in the Starter Kit you CAN upgrade. Just contact me for details and I’ll get you set up no problem!

Is Your Favorite Salad Dressing Making You Fat?

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Today I want to talk to you about something that could secretly be sabotaging your weight-loss goals. Something so popular in America many people don’t even think twice about eating regularly. Some may even think that it’s OK to eat or even “harmless”.

I’m talking about store-bought salad dressings and the fact that they are probably making you fat… or at least keeping you fat!

Those creamy, oily, sugary processed salad dressings that come in hundreds and hundreds of different flavors could be keeping you fat.America is convinced that although salad is health food, the only way to choke down bland and boring lettuce is to slather it in rich decadent dressing.

I really don’t like store bought dressings. I actually despise them and almost NEVER use them.

I’ve had so many salads in my life that pretty much any store bought salad dressing turns my stomach. Even those oil-free supposedly “healthy” salad dressings (which in no way shape or form are even remotely healthy.)

 The top 3 Reasons Why Store Bought Salad Dressings Are Bad For You:

 

#1. Classic Dressings Are Oil/Mayo/Cream Based

Often times creamy dressings have even MORE calories than pure oil. How can they manage to make a dressing worse than pure concentrated fat? By adding high fructose corn syrup to it!

Check out the calorie count of some popular salad dressings:

Calories and Fat in 2 TBS Caesar Salad Dressing
150 cals       16 g

Calories and Fat in 2 TBS Thousand Island Dressing
140 cals       13 g

Calories and Fat in 2 TBS French Dressing
120 cals       12 g

Calories and Fat in 2 TBS Olive Oil
120 cals       14 g

Now while you may think that 100-200 calories of dressing is not a big deal, I want you to ask yourself, when was the last time you had a gigantic salad and only used 1 or 2 TBSP of dressing? It is extremely hard to make the dressing stretch that far and give your salad enough flavor. Many lunch salads come with 2-4 oz of salad dressing. Did you know that’s the equivalent of 4-8 tablespoons? That can be an extra 300-600 calories in your dressing alone!

A green salad with some vegetables might have between 50 and 100 calories depending on how many vegetables you add to it. If you’re also tossing some nuts, avocado, cheese, bacon or chicken onto that salad as well you can be adding another 200-500 calories and your “innocent” little lunch salad is looking rather indulgent compared to a fast food hamburger (which is mostly bread anyway and lower in fat). A high fat diet has been shown time and time again to negatively impact those with heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and many other common diseases.

P.S. Check out my healthier raw vegan Caesar salad dressing recipe.

photo from 123RF

#2. Rich High Calorie Dressings Prevent You From Losing Weight

Most women think that the key to losing weight is to skip their regular lunch fare and just have a salad for lunch. Well as we learned above, what you put in your salad and what dressing you choose really matters in terms of calorie and fat content. Drizzling dressing haphazardly over your daily salad is not going to help you reach your weight-loss goals if you already have a problem with portion control and late night snacking.

#3. Store Bought Dressings Are Mass Produced And Contain Questionable Ingredients

Many dressings are based on 3 things, oil/fat, vinegar and high fructose corn syrup. Next they add in artificial flavourings, colours and preservatives and salt. None of these items are good for you, and they are all 100% refined. While the low calorie dressings may seem like a “better” choice, they are still based on vinegar and high fructose corn syrup, and let’s face it, you deserve better than that to build your body with. Artificial colours such as “caramel” (also used in colas) are added to many store bought dressings to make it look better but caramel colouring has been labeled in California as “known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.” 1.

So what is the solution then?

Figure out how to MAKE your own tasty and nutritious salad dressings from WHOLE FOODS and healthy fats. It’s a good idea to learn how to master both low calorie and nut based dressings so you have a variety to choose from and you don’t have to eat the same ones week in and week out.

For this weekend only I’m giving away a copy of ’70 Healthy Salad Dressings’ when you buy the GOLD package of my new ebook ‘Simply DecadentSmoothies’. Essentially you are getting 2 ebooks for the price of one and access to over 120 whole foods recipes you can make in any old blender in 5 minutes or less.

I have to say I much prefer homemade salad dressings to store bought ones. Even though they take a few minutes to prepare and don’t last for months in the fridge they are infinitely tastier and better for you. Also instead of adding nuts to my salads, I prefer to blend nuts or seeds into my salad dressings instead of using oil. Ingredients like hemp seeds, tahini (sesame seed butter) almond butter and chia seeds are some of my favorites. I also make some really tasty fat free salad dressings with fresh citrus juice and
vegetables.

If you make salad dressing just once every 3 days you’ll be well on your way to having a heart healthy AND waist line friendly salad that will help you achieve your weight loss goals.

So get in your kitchen and start blending your way to a healthier trimmer you with ‘Simply Decadent Smoothies’ and for this weekend only get ’70 Healthy Salad Dressings’ as your bonus to keep.

What’s your favorite homemade salad dressing recipe?

The Fat Future Of America Is Frightening (This Applies To All of North America)

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Fat American Couch Potato Eating Chips Cartoon
I have a really great educational graphic on the affects of obesity in America that I wanted to share with you. The designer asked if I could post it on my website as it is in line with what I’m teaching. (Scroll down)

I want everyone to realize that people are gaining more weight and faster than ever before because of the amount of fast food and convenient foods available.

In many states children grow up without every really having a home cooked meal. I even know many adults that would rather eat out every meal of the day than cook something at home (even though this is much more expensive). Yes cooking takes some time, but honestly exercising and dieting takes even more time, so why not make a few more meals at home and save both time AND money doing so?

You may or may not have heard about the KFC Double Down. Many of you will think oh, but not many people eat like that. Well KFC would not have put so much time and money into promoting this sandwich nationally if they didn’t know for a FACT that Americans (and Canadians) would want to eat it, given the chance. And they were right. Even though you know this is obviously not healthy for you, many people are eating it as a novelty, for fun, or because it looks decadent or “manly”.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Double Down Chicken Sandwich

This nutritional info is straight from KFC’s website 

 Item:  Calories  Fat (g)  Sodium (mg)
 KFC Double Down 540  32  1380
 Potato Wedges  290  15 810
 20 oz. Pepsi  210  0  45
 Total:  1040  47  2215

Avg. Rec. limit 2000 calories/ Daily limit 65 g/ Daily limit 1500 mg

(Even if you don’t eat a double down chicken sandwich meal, remember a lot of people eat fried chicken, cheese and bacon as part of fast food meals as well.)

My goal with this website is to help educate people on how to eat MORE plant foods and how to make them 100% healthy and low in fat. Far too often people fall into the trap of craving only battered, deep fried, cheezy, creamy and barbecued food and forsake simple fruit and vegetable based dishes because they’ve either never had them or don’t think they would taste good at all.

This is a shame.

I guarantee you that if you try some of my recipes you will enjoy them. My recipes are not just designed for vegans and vegetarians who like healthier foods, they are designed with lots of flavour that many SAD (Standard American Diet) eaters or omnivores don’t even realize that it is oil free and vegan.

If I can get a SAD/omnivore to exclaim wow this is really good I want more, then my job has been a success.

So far it is working on my friends and family and they are slowly learning how to make more meals from scratch (and they are losing weight too!)

If you continue to eat fast food and junk food when you’re young, it’s very likely that your future will end up like this. The pounds will continue to creep every year and one day you won’t know what happened or even when it started.

Did you know that just overeating ONLY twice a year (On Thanksgiving and Christmas) can cause you to gain a pound or more? So every year your weight is increasing by 1 lb and in 10 years you’ll be 10 lbs heavier.

American Thanksgiving Weight Gain Eating Turkey Scale

Combine that with DAILY treats and overeating just to satisfy your “sweet tooth” or “fat tooth” (in some people) and this can be as much as 5 lbs a year. I’m not kidding. To gain an extra 5 lbs a year, you’d only have to eat an 48 EXTRA calories more than you needed every day! That’s the equivalent to an apple or 1 bite of a chocolate bar! (If you ate an extra apple a day you probably would not gain this much weight as it has so much fibre and takes more energy to digest, but chocolate bars and desserts are high in sugar and fat and unlike a piece of fruit.)

What if you could just walk for 20 minutes a day and switch your dessert for some fruit? What if you switched your breakfast from a mcmuffin and hash browns to a fruit smoothie instead? Or your burger and fries for lunch into a oil free soup and salad?

What if you gradually switched where every meal you were eating was oil free and based on fruits and vegetables instead of bread, oil, meat, cheese, butter and cream?

These things make a big difference over the long run for your health. Not just affecting your weight but affecting your risks for heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.

Start out just trying to eat a little healthier than yesterday. Only compare yourself to yourself, and no one else. Take the time you need, educate yourself, learn how to cook something healthy and new, start walking for fun with a friend.