DISCOVER YOUR ZEN
Snacking and Portion Sizes
We’re starting our meal plans today! If you’re following the meal plan, then you have all of your meals and snacks including portion sizes already set for you. But as you move forward beyond this program, it is important to know how to create a healthy eating plan for yourself.
Eat When You’re Hungry
One of the biggest mistakes people make when embarking on eating healthy is to allow themselves to get too hungry. Hunger is good and will make your dinner taste better no matter what you’re eating. But, letting it go too long can also cause you to lose grip of your goals and fall off the wagon.
When you feel hungry whether that manifests as your stomach growling, feeling light-headed, nauseous, or other symptoms and it’s more than an hour from time to eat you should eat a small snack to tide you over if you’ve already eaten your other meals. Snack ideas depend on the diet you’ve decided to follow. It could consist of some cheese, a veggie roll, an apple, some berries, or even a small serving of lean turkey breast.
One way to figure out serving sizes, without having to measure, outside of getting smaller plates is to use your hand as your guide. The palm of your hand is a dinner sized serving of protein. Your thumb is the size of a piece of cheese. Whatever you can grab with your hand, without dropping it is a good serving size of fruit, such as low glycemic, fiber rich berries.
Try to balance your snack with protein, carbohydrate, and fat. It’ll last longer and you can eat less. Do you tend to get hungry between meals and physically feel bad? You might want to assess what you’re eating so that you can ensure that you are eating enough calories at each meal. One of the worst things you can do is get too hungry. You should be mouthwatering hungry at meal times, but keep control of it. You don’t want to get carried away at mealtime. It can cause binge eating and lessen your resolve to eat healthy, which really is the number one way to avoid temptations.
Control Your Portion Size
Scientific America reported on a few different studies that show that no matter which type of diet you’re on it’s all about calories in and calories out. However, the reason some people seem to eat whatever they want and stay thin and some don’t is genetics and the body’s basal metabolic rate or BMR.
You can get a test to determine your individual BMR via a medical professional but you can also use averages and then observe to see how that works for you. There are online calculators to help you such as this one on my site.
You can figure out your BMR, which is how many calories you need to maintain a specific weight. This number is likely a lot higher than you think. It’s dangerous to eat fewer calories than this number. An example is a 5-foot 5-inch tall, 30-year-old female who weighs 145 pounds has (on average) a BMR of 1407. That means at rest she burns 1407 calories. Eating less than this would probably be dangerous and cause fast weight loss since, unless she only rests she probably burns more calories than that each day living her life off the couch.
The reason portions are so important is that plate size has grown substantially in the last few years. Which can explain why our average girth has also grown. For example, today most plates are 12 inches in diameter, whereas in the 1960’s the average plate was only 8.5 inches in diameter. This is a huge difference. Today’s plates hold an average of 1900 calories whereas the older plates held an average of 800 calories.
Get new plates that are the right size for one meal. This visual reminder can make a huge difference in your ability to eat healthy in your everyday life. Today you can buy portion-controlled plates, like THESE on Amazon.com.
Getting Started
When you focus on small changes, eating a wide variety of food, staying hydrated, and moving, it’s going to be a lot easier to avoid temptations because nothing is off limits for life. It’s just not part of your daily life and it never should have been. It’s just a matter of changing your perception. Look at food as fuel 80 percent of the time. Many people live a fast food lifestyle and eat fast food daily. That isn’t good. Once you get out of the habit, you’ll feel a lot better.
You don’t have to give up those things. During the holidays eat a piece of pie, enjoy the giblet gravy, and use a smaller plate. Focus on your family and friends, so you don’t over eat.
During non-holidays, focus on eating as close to your plan as possible. This will give you the ability to amend the plan during those special days. This is the best way to avoid temptation and stick to eating healthy until it becomes a part of your life forever. Just look forward and think to yourself on July 4th I’ll get to share a funnel cake with my friend, I don’t need that apple pie from McD’s today. Saying no today isn’t hard, when you know you can say yes tomorrow, if you want to. It is your choice. Make the one that is best for your health.
Now that we’ve gotten started with our healthy eating…it will soon be time to focus on MOVING! Let me know whether you want a BURN or BUILD exercise program (See #3 below).
TODAY’S ACTION STEPS:
1) Start your meal plan. Whether your prepared your own meals based on the meal plan I provided, or whether you ordered meal delivery. Enjoy these nourishing foods!
2) Log in to the Fitness App on your COMPUTER – https://doctorvenus.com/app-login/ – and go to the FORMS tab. Go to the Eating Healthy Worksheet and answer questions 6-12. Be sure to click SAVE.
3) Send an email to team@DoctorVenus.com and let me know whether you want an exercise plan for weight loss (focused on burning calories) or for building/maintaining your mass. So you just need to indicate whether you want a BURN or BUILD program.
4) If you have any questions about the meal plan, or anything else, let me know in the Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/teamdrvenus/
5) If you haven’t received a meal plan, then you need to make sure you’ve submitted your PAR-Q and Client Agreement forms (see below) AND that you’ve emailed me back to confirm your choice of vegetarian or non-vegetarian (see below).
Previous ACTION STEPS:
(Not a complete list, but some important highlights.)
1) Log in to the Fitness App on your COMPUTER – https://doctorvenus.com/app-login/ – and go to the FORMS tab. If you haven’t completed the Client Agreement form and the PAR-Q form from Day 1’s ACTION STEPS, do that today and sign them. Be sure to click SAVE when you’re done. (You can not receive the meal plan and workout plan when they are released until we have those completed forms on file.)
2) If you haven’t done so yet, send an email to team@DoctorVenus.com and state whether you want a vegetarian or non-vegetarian meal plan. It will be sent to your Fitness App by this evening…JUST for you to review, if you’re interested. You don’t have to worry about getting everything ready to start the diet by tomorrow. I’ll take you through this whole process, step-by-step, in the upcoming week.
3) Download the Set Your Goals Checklist and complete it. CLICK HERE to download.
4) Download the Program Planner that you can start using, if you wish. CLICK HERE to download.
5) Download the Kitchen Clean Out handout and use it to guide the clean out of your kitchen BEFORE you start your meal plan. CLICK HERE to download.