Your Ideal Form

Helping you on your journey to your best self!

Diet

How and Why to Drink More Water

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How and Why to Drink More Water

While I wish for all of you to have a thirst, zest and zeal for life, unlike that Dos Equis guy, I do NOT want you to stay (literally) thirsty, my friends. Hydration is important!

Quenches your thirst for zero calories

Most of us have a limit to how many calories we should take in each day. Wouldn’t you rather spend those calories on tasty, filling food rather than just a drink? When you’re thirsty, reaching for water can quench your thirst without cutting into your calorie quota for the day. Also, we often have a tendency to forget to count liquid calories. Using high calorie drinks such as soda to quench our thirst often leads to going over our calorie limit for the day.

Regular hydration prevents retention

There are many reasons your body might retain water. Keeping your hydration level constant can help prevent large fluctuations on the scale when your body needs to use more water for sore muscles or digesting large meals. Staying properly hydrated also prevents your body for mistaking thirst for hunger, making you possibly eat more than you should.

Keep water handy

The best way to get more water throughout the day is to keep it close at hand. Buy a water bottle in your favorite color so that you aren’t ever without something to drink. Test out different kinds as well. You might prefer a wide-mouthed bottle, one with a sports cap, or one with a straw. They even make insulated bottles to keep your water cold, bottles with built in filters if your only option is water from a tap, and even bottles with built in infusers so you can flavor your water with fruit. Get the one that works best for you.

Drink up!

Now that you have a water bottle, be sure you use it! You can set a timer and drink a little bit each hour. You can also make a rule for yourself that you won’t have a second cup of coffee until you’ve had half or a full bottle of water. Perhaps you have to drink an entire bottle before lunch. Yes, you will find you will have to pee a lot at first, but just like any other muscle, your bladder will get stronger over time.

I feel like water solves everything. Wanna lose weight- Drink water. Clear skin- Drink water.Tired of your man- Drown him.

Measuring vs Weighing Your Food

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MeasuringvsWeighingYour Food

Weight loss pretty much boils down to eating fewer calories than your body burns in a day. It’s not about just eating some random amount “less” than before, you have to eat below your TDEE. And in order to do that, you have to know how much you are eating. This is where tracking comes into play. The more exact you can be, the quicker you will see results.

The scale of food tracking, from best to worst:

  1. Weighing everything out
  2. Measuring with spoons and cups
  3. Eyeballing it and guessing how much
  4. Basic tracking where you just write down what was eaten, not how much
  5. Not logging anything at all

I’d like to make the case for weighing your food rather than measuring it imprecisely. However, if you have obsessive tendencies, and this will worsen that or trigger an eating disorder, please don’t.

Buy a kitchen scale and USE it

Having a kitchen scale will give you the most accurate picture of how much you are eating. Keep it out on the counter so it is easy to use. You won’t use it if you have to dig it out of a cupboard each time you need it. Get used to using that “tare” button that zeroes out the scale. Need to measure peanut butter for a sandwich? You don’t have to dirty a separate utensil. Just put the plate and bread on the scale, and hit the tare button. Now pick up the bread and spread on the peanut butter. (The scale should go negative) Once your bread is (peanut) buttered, place it back down on the plate, and record the amount. Now you can hit the tare button again, and add more ingredients.

Guessing just leads to frustration

There are countless articles and infographics out there about guesstimating how much food you are eating. Sometimes this is really useful; for example if you are eating at someone else’s house. (Most restaurants these days post their nutrition information online if not right on the menu, so you can just look up the numbers there) But often, these guesses aren’t very clear. How much is a “handful” exactly? Should I be able to completely close my hand around it, or is it as much as I can possibly grab without any more falling through my fingers? And whose hand? I have relatively small hands, does this mean I should grab more? Should someone with larger hands grab less? And what do you do when it tells you that a “serving” of meat is the size of your palm, but doesn’t tell you how many grams or ounces that is?

Weighing is most accurate

You don’t want to be inadvertently consuming more calories than you actually logged. This leads to slower progress, and frustration when the scale doesn’t reflect what you think it should. Certain foods can be difficult to measure. And measuring requires dirtying whatever implement you are using to measure in the first place. With weighing, you can just put things on the plate you are going to use anyway, and just use the tare button to zero out the scale between different items. Weighing also keeps you honest. You might grab a heaping spoonful of peanut butter, and mark it down as 1 teaspoon. Weighing will tell you exactly how many grams it is, regardless of whether that spoon was made by Oneida, Mikasa or IKEA.

Being honest and accurate with your logging is the fastest way to get results.

Making Cooking Easier

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How to Make Cooking Easier

Making the actual cooking of your meals easier is the best way to avoid many of the mistakes that are made when  people try to plan their meals ahead of time.

Make use of easy cooking methods

Whether it’s one-pan oven meals, quick and easy meals on the grill, or my personal favorite, the slow cooker, easy cooking methods make cooking less laborious. Using the oven and the slow cooker might result in longer cooking times, but you don’t have to watch over them or stir. Just set a timer, and when it goes off, dinner is ready. Many grilled dishes take a bit more attention, but they are often done very quickly. Fill out the form below for three of my go-to easy recipes!

Pre-prep what you can

Mornings are often a rush. Even if you plan on making a fairly simple slow cooker dish, chopping up veggies can take time. Do some of that preparing ahead of time. Chop up those veggies and put them in containers or labeled baggies so when the time comes to use them you just have to dump them in. This is also a strategy I use whenever I buy grapes to make sure they get eaten before they turn into raisins. Buy washing them and removing the stems right away, whenever I need a snack, I can just grab a handful and they’re ready to eat. There are many recipes you can find for “freezer meals” where you do all the prep but the cooking, and then freeze the food. The day you want to eat that meal, take it out of the freezer in the morning and put it in the fridge to thaw. Then, that evening, all you have to do is cook. Many of these are even set up for slow cooker meals as well.

Make bigger batches

It can be tough to carve out a big chunk of time to prepare your food, but if you do, then the process of making those meals during the week becomes significantly easier. Take the time to prepare all your lunches for the week, so that during the week it’s just grab-n-go. If you are going to make a marinade, quadruple the recipe, and store the rest in a bottle in the fridge. Next time you make that meal, you already have the marinade made, and can just pour it on to whatever meat or veggies you are making. If you are making a soup or stew, again, double the recipe, and then freeze half of it for a couple weeks later. Multiplying a recipe takes very little extra time now, but will save you a ton of time in the future!

Be sure when freezing things to label what it is and date it! Hopefully these tips will help you stay on course to reaching your goals!

For more tips on making cooking easier, check out my Ultimate Guide to Meal Prep.

Meal Prep Mistakes

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Are you making these meal prepping mistakes-

After taking all that time to plan out your meals for the week, I want to caution you about a few meal prep mistakes I’ve seen others make.

Wasting Food

You need to commit to this meal prepping thing. If you buy food but then when the time comes you don’t follow through and cook it, the food will spoil and you’ll end up just throwing it away and wasting food and money. And then you’ll have to buy something else to eat, which wastes even more money. And it is likely that in the moment, you’ll order take out or make something that’s not as healthy as you would have otherwise.

Trying to be too fancy

One of the ways to avoid wasting food is by NOT getting too fancy with the recipes. Roast leg of lamb with an apricot reduction and a side of zuppa toscana sounds a-maz-ing. But it’s not really practical for an every day dish. Keep your weekday meals simple and quick and you will be far more likely to stick to your plan. See the end of this article for three recipes you can download that are quick and easy to add to your meal rotations.

Not knowing “thine self”

In our household, when we prep our lunches for the week, it’s the exact. same. meal. And it’s the exact same meal for months at a time. In colder months we have steel cut oats with ground turkey. In warmer months it’s salad with grilled chicken. That’s it. Keeping it simple lowers the barrier to preparing those lunches ahead of time. And that works for us. However! If you can’t handle eating the same thing for lunch for months on end, DON’T. Don’t prepare a week’s worth of salads, and then on Wednesday decide you’re sick of them and make a run up to Chipotle instead. If you need some variety, try making extra food when you make your dinners so you can have enough left over for lunches during the week.

Keep a backup meal handy

Even the best laid plan only lasts until the first arrow leaves the bow. Maybe despite the planning, you forgot a critical ingredient. Or perhaps due to traffic you are running late and don’t have time to cook the meal you had previously planned on. Or you’re just having a horrible day and spending time cooking is NOT what you want to do. This is when having a backup meal is really handy. A backup meal should be something that you can cook up quickly, but also lasts a decent amount of time should you not need it right away. On days we are “not feeling it”, we turn to chicken sausage that we heat up on our Foreman Grill. Just grill them up for a bit, and eat with ketchup. Not the healthiest meal in terms of micronutrients, but because it is chicken, it’s lower in fat than bratwurst, and much lower in calories. Still super delicious and satisfying though!

Hopefully these tips can help you stick to your meal plan. Don’t forget to download your free recipes!

For more tips on avoiding meal prep mistakes, check out my Ultimate Guide to Meal Prep.

Meal Planning for Healthier Eating

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Meal Planning for Healthier Eating

Success in just about any endeavor where you are trying to make a change comes down to honesty, consistency, tracking and planning ahead. Planning ahead makes it much easier to honestly stick to your plan, be consistent about it, and also easier to track since you’ve thought about it ahead of time. Planning out your meals in advance is a great way to get ahead of the game. I’ve written about preparing meals ahead of time, but this is about planning things out before you even get to the grocery store.

Promise me something

I want you to make a vow right now to never again head to the grocery store without a list. No more just “winging” it. No more just buying whatever you feel like. Even if you are only going in for a couple things, make a list. I find that when I only need a few things, I think I can remember them all, and also since my list is short, I figure I can pick up a few random extra things, and then I inevitably forget one of the items I actually meant to buy. Make. A. List. Decide what meals you will make for the week, and add the ingredients you don’t already have in the pantry or fridge to the list. You can use a pen an paper list, or one of the many list apps out there. There are even apps that will store your ingredient lists for meals, so you simply select which meals you plan to make, and it automatically adds what you need to your list for that shopping trip.

Make a meal list

This is different from your grocery list, but will help you tremendously in planning your meals for the week. Make a master list of easy to prepare, healthy meals. (To help you get started, fill out the form below to get three free recipes!) This list also keeps your meal rotation from getting too boring, as you can reference it for a meal you haven’t had in a while. Pinterest is a great place for finding easy meals for the slow cooker, or one pan oven meals. Keeping the recipes for these meals is handy when it comes time to make your shopping list so you can be sure you don’t forget any main ingredients. It also gives you the opportunity to be sure you have enough of a particular ingredient on hand rather than getting to the store and trying to remember if you have lentils at home or not and if you do, if you have enough to cover the amount the recipe calls for.

Don’t over complicate it

While your meal list can help you with keeping your menu fresh, don’t try to make it too complicated by trying to come up with too many different meals. It’s a great idea to have at least one go-to meal that is super simple each week. In our household, we alternate between chicken thighs and wings each week, but we have them every single week. (I’ve included this one in the recipes below) Also, try to keep most of the meals themselves relatively simple. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible to cook a healthy meal at home rather than going out to eat. The easier a meal is to prepare, the more likely you are to choose that option.

Plan ahead with the sales flyer

If you live near a supermarket, you likely get a flyer from them in the mail each week. You can also use this flyer to help you plan out your meals, especially if you are on a budget. Just cross-reference what’s on sale with the meals in your lineup, and then add those items to your grocery list.

Stick to the list

I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but once you’ve consulted your meal index and the store flyer and created your shopping list, ONLY BUY WHAT’S ON THE LIST. For one, this will get you in and out of the grocery store faster. Also, if you avoid buying extras, then you won’t be tempted by having them in the house. Healthy eating starts in the grocery store. If you don’t put it in your cart, you won’t put it in your mouth.

For more tips on planning out your meals, including how to build a Meal Library, check out my Ultimate Guide to Meal Prep.

A Different Kind of Meal Prep

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how-to-stick-to-your-diet-when-eating-out

Meal prepping is one of the best things you can do to help you achieve your weight loss goals.  But what about when you’re not at home? Unfortunately, it is far too easy to go way over your limits with even just one dish at some dining establishments. Today I want to look at a few ways we can prep before going out to eat, so we don’t end the night feeling like one meal has completely derailed all our progress.

Plan ahead

The key here, as is often repeated, is to plan ahead. Either plan to eat foods that fit into your allowance for the day, or if you can plan way ahead, you can eat less during the day/week leading up to it, so you can eat what you want without worry. So if you know your birthday dinner is this coming weekend, and you absolutely must have the tiramisu at your favorite Italian joint, keep the rest of your meals for the week on the lighter side to “make room” for that decadent dessert. If a dinner out is more of a spur of the moment decision, then plan to pick something off the menu that fits into your diet plan for the day. So, how can we make sure we’re sticking to our plan?

Pre-peruse the menu

These days, every chain restaurant has the nutrition information of their menus posted on their website. Before heading out, take a look at the online menu and decide ahead of time what you are going to order. Now, while this is an easy tip, it’s really hard to stick to. It’s easy to look at the menu and say “oh, I’ll order the grilled salmon!” but then once you get there and smell all those wonderful smells, it becomes very difficult to not order the smokehouse burger and cheese fries instead. This is where it helps to go back up to planning ahead. If you’re not going out for a few days, you have time to build in some wiggle room so you can order what you really want to eat, rather than having to settle for something yummy, but that doesn’t quite “hit the spot”. If you are going to a more “mom and pop” local joint, you can still look up a similar chain online to get a decent estimate of menu items.

Promise to go halfsies

Another option when going out to eat is to promise yourself ahead of time you’ll only eat half of your meal. Many restaurants these days give you huge portions that are more befitting of two meals than just one. You can ask for a box up front to box up half of the food right away so that it’s not even on your plate anymore. This lets you basically cut the calorie/macro count of the dish in half right off the bat. Just be sure to also plan ahead for what you will do with the leftovers. Alternatively, you can offer to split the dish with a dining partner so there aren’t any leftovers.

These are just a few tricks you can use next time you dine out so that you can eat what you really want, but still continue making progress toward your goals!

For more ideas on how to handle eating out with coworkers, check out my Ultimate Guide to Meal Prep.