Sugar and processed carbs such as pasta and white bread are a great way to pack on the pounds and damage your health. We are usually talking about sweets, pastries, cookies and cakes when talking about sugar. The rest of the munchies such as potato chips, crackers and pretzels are also processed foods. By the way, sugar is also a carbohydrate.
The other big source of disease and illness is the over-consumption of saturated and hydrogenated fats. Let's go ahead and tackle the fat consumption as well. Make sure you are getting enough of the good fats from sources such as olive oil or from almonds or walnuts.
We'll let Jack LaLanne tells us how to eat,
"If man made it, don't eat it." and "If it tastes good, spit it out."
1. Stop eating all sweets and processed foods
The withdrawal symptoms may be headaches, body aches and irritability. These are all clear signs that you were addicted. After about a week or two the cravings should be out of your system and you may notice some increased energy and alertness. This will also help your pocket book.
2. Start buying and consuming plant-based foods.
Your shopping list is now void of processed foods. You need to replace it with unprocessed foods of a plant-based nature. That's pretty easy. Now you're shopping for fruits and vegetables as well as starchy carbs such as brown rice and sweet potatoes.
3. Reduce or eliminate caffeine.
Too much caffeine in the body causes inflammation. If you are a regular coffee drinker, you are addicted. If you stop you will go through withdrawal symptoms for about a week (headaches and maybe body aches). After that, you will wonder why you even had the craving for coffee. As with the elimination of sugar, you may feel more alert and have more energy.
4. Stop consuming cheese and milk.
If you are a regular consumer of cheese and milk, you need to stop eating it because you are probably eating too much. It is the American way to over-consume and you are taking in too much saturated fat which causes high blood pressure and high (bad) cholesterol.
5. Reduce or eliminate meat.
Meat is another big source of saturated fat and, unfortunately, lots of other hormones and chemicals which are clearly not good for you. It's the saturated fat that makes meat taste so good. If you are a regular consumer of meat, you are probably eating too much (portion sizes) and you are probably addicted to the fat. You will get all the protein you need from plant-based products and you will feel better.
6. Eliminate the other sweeteners.
There are all kinds of other sweeteners from artificial to natural. They will only cause you to remain addicted to sweets, both physically and psychologically. You don't need them.
7. The most hard core way is to start right now. Nothing else works.
It doesn't do any good to educate yourself on how to eat healthy. That's just an academic experience and I know you're not reading this to be academically entertained. How does it start? Take action right now. It starts with your trip to the grocer or eating out. It starts with going to the kitchen and removing those foods on the elimination list and getting them out of the house. I think you get the picture. If you're into tracking your progress and calorie intake, my Foot and Fitness Journal will help you out and is available as an EBook (Kindle and other formats) and as softcover on Amazon as well as at your favorite book store. For those who need to lose weight, my weight loss book, Weight Loss - Twenty Pounds in Ten Weeks, will help you.
Kindle and Softcover
