unorthodoxchef

Everyday there is a new diet craze, a new exercise, and a new pill that promises to help you lose the weight and maintain a lifestyle that’s comfortable for you. They work for some people but, there are simple ways to change your routine that will help you overcome that plateau.

I have been struggling with this my whole life. I had never had a set routine because of my busy lifestyle in the restaurant. Every day I would put in about 16 hours and sometimes not take the time to sit down and eat one meal. It takes a toll on your body and makes it that much more difficult to shed the pounds when you’re actually trying to make it happen.

Fiber, Fiber, Fiber

Very few individuals can say they reach their daily allowance of Fiber every day. You should be consuming up to 25 grams of Fiber a day. This may be difficult considering that most foods have barely enough grams to even make a difference. However, there are so many health benefits to consuming your daily allowance of Fiber. For starters, Fiber is a natural colon cleanser. Any fatty foods that you consume in a day attach themselves to these fiber particles and don’t get left to rot in your intestines.They are excreted during your bathroom visits which may not seem to pleasant at the time but, this allows you to get rid of the not so healthy foods that may linger around causing you to be stuck at your plateau for weeks. Try some of these very simple food items that you may already have in your cabinets.

• Raisins
• Plums
• Beans
• Whole grain wheat breads
• Oatmeal (also great for lowering blood pressure)
• Figs, blueberries, pears, oranges, dried apricots, peaches
• Wheat pasta
• Peanuts, pistachios, almonds, cashews
• Peas, carrots, brussel sprouts, artichokes, turnip greens, corn
• Benefiber

Cutting Saturated Fats

Although the American Heart Association says that 7% of your daily calories should and can come from saturated fats; they do still have some serious repercussions. Eating foods that contain
saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood. This, in turn, will increase your risk of heart disease and stroke. Avoid these foods at all costs if you are serious about beating the bulge.

“Most oils are high in monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats, and low in saturated fats. Oils from plant sources (vegetable and nut oils) do not contain any cholesterol. In fact, no foods from plants sources contain cholesterol.”

Good Oils: extra virgin olive oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, and safflower oil

• Fatty beef, pork, poultry with skin
•  Lard and butter
•  Cheese made from whole milk
•  Anything fried
•  Baked goods (cookies, pastries, cakes)
•  Palm and Coconut Oil 

Cut down on sodium.

“The sodium recommendation made by the Federal Government’s National High Blood Pressure Education Program NHBPEP is less than 2400 mg per day (~1 tsp of salt).” Sodium was never a huge
issue for me because I never added salt to my food. However, when you start comparing the foods that you buy to the daily allowance of salt in your diet, it might surprise you. I have found
that many canned processed foods are extremely high in sodium. A jar of tomato sauce alone contains close to 2500mg of sodium and a can of Campbell’s soup contains up to 1600 mg. I try to purchase foods that either contain low or reduced sodium amounts if I have to buy canned foods. Otherwise, these high sodium foods will make you bloat and increase your blood pressure. Here are some examples:

• Breakfast cereal
• processed meats such as bacon, ham & smoked
  sausages/cured fish and canned soup
• canned vegetables and beans
• frozen dinners
• cup noodles/soup-to-go
• frozen pizza
• sauce, marinade & dressings
• meat
• crackers & cookies

Stop eating fast food.

To put it simply, there are no good fast food restaurants. On Weight Watchers, they’ll give a guide to use when you visit certain fast food restaurants. They pick out the healthiest alternatives that are usually salads, fruits, and veggie burgers. The problem is that most of these alternatives have more fat and calories than the burgers on the menu. Take the Big Mac for instance. The Big Mac contains over 540 calories, 30 grams of fat, and close to 50% of your daily allowance of sodium. The Premium Southwest Salad with Crispy Chicken contains close to 430 calories, 30 fat grams, and 920 mg of sodium. So, if you do choose to splurge, just pick the Big Mac because you know you want it. Just be prepared to work it off later.

Shop on the perimeter of the supermarket.

It you think about this logically, the perimeter of the supermarket contains the deli, fresh vegetables and fruit, dairy, bread, meat, etc. You should be choosing your foods from these resources. Every item located on the perimeter makes up your daily allowances on the food guide pyramid. If you’re not shopping in this area then I would assume you are buying bundles of processed, high sodium, and high fat alternatives.   However, in some cases you might need to venture down these isles for whole wheat pasta, heart healthy olive oil, bread, and low sodium juices.

Cut down on Red Meat.

This goes along with consuming too many saturated fats however; the affects of eating red fatty meats can lead to numerous health conditions. The most prevalent is obesity. When you consume red meat, it tends to hang around in your body for up to a week before it is excreted from the body. In this time, it sits a bit longer in the stomach causing it to be harder to breakdown. This just gives the fat time to sit around a bit longer so it’s just that much harder to get rid of it.

Eat 6 meals a day.

Most people are aware that consuming food every 2 hours will help to increase your metabolism and assist you in eating smaller portions. You will have energy throughout the day and you will start sleeping a whole lot better when your body is used to this routine.

Don’t ever skip meals.

You may think you don’t have the time but, if you are in a situation or a job that doesn’t allow you to take a break than you have bigger issues. In my experience, skipping meals has led me to have a slower metabolism, bad eyesight, migraines, and has actually made me gain more weight. In the restaurant, I would eat at 7 pm after working from 8am to 11pm. The meals would be huge since I didn’t even have the energy to stand. I would gorge myself and afterwords, most of the time; I would get sick from the amount of food consumed. I stopped doing this a while ago. I was afraid for my health and I couldn’t function while working.

Cut down the Cardio and increase Circuit training.

Anytime I was exercising, I would spend up to 1 hour on the elliptical machine and 25 minutes on weights. I wasn’t seeing any results. I was watching what I ate and I was stuck at my plateau for months. I consulted a dietitian and weight trainer at my college and they urged me to cut down the cardio. I was surprised to say the least.

Every item of information on diets always urges you to get some sort of physical activity but, what they don’t tell you is that if you want to jump start your body without bulking up lift weights. I started my own circuit training program in which I would do2 sets of 20 reps on each machine with very low weight. I would take about a 20 second break between each rep before I started another one. The key to this is moving fast and efficiently to keep your heart rate up and maintain a cardio workout with resistance training combined. After I began this form of training, my plateau was a thing of the past. Within a week, I had shed 4 pounds and it just keeps coming off.

Counting cards at home.

If you don’t feel like going to the gym, this is a great plan to maintain at home. This plan is pretty ambitious so be prepared to sweat. You take a deck of cards and shuffle them. I usually assign a number of exercises plus the type to face cards, aces, and numbers. Let’s say you flip over the first card and it reads Queen. Face cards are worth 20 reps. Depending on the exercise you plan to choose; you do that many reps and move on to the next card. You can, in fact, use half the deck if this is the first time you are starting this plan. I usually do this plan on Sundays, when I don’t feel like going to the gym.

Try this with your kids; it could be fun for the both of you. In most cases, the kids will not even know their exercising. They will think it’s a fun game and think it’s even better because they get to spend time with you.
Note: I know I left out water but, you should already know that consuming 8 glasses of water a day will help in weight lose. I add those single serve Crystal Light packets to a bottled water. This works
great for me.

I understand that these plans may not work for you. You’ve tried everything and nothing works. If you can try to implement one of these in your daily life and see that it makes a change, and then try another one.

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