If you talk about something every day, does it make you an expert? I guess you are getting ready to find out. Nutrition and weight loss are probably the subjects that doctors, nurses, and even nurse practitioners have the least amount of formal training. Except we deal with it everyday. So, we are very unprepared to discuss it unless we go out there and teach ourselves the information. I can admit that my preparation as a nurse, and a nurse practitioner had exactly one three credit course in nutrition. So, now you know my qualifications. I live it everyday, discussing nutrition, vitamin deficiency and weight loss, but I have had to work hard over the years to build by own knowledge base on the subject.
So, what is the secret to weight loss? I tell patients it's a math game - calories in vs calories out. That game is easily played in the 20's where metabolism and hormones are fairly perfect. You can get away with eating almost anything you want and not gain weight. Fair? No, but that is the reality. Then, something hits women, in the 30's for some, the 40's for most, and some it doesn't hit until after menopause, but all of the sudden you are gaining weight but you re not eating differently or exercising differently. I talk throughout this website on female hormones, thyroid hormones, vitamin deficiency and stress management on weight. But this page is going to focus only on what you eat.
So, back to the math game. As you age, and "things" are changing, you have to adjust either the calories in or the calories out, or both, to lose weight. Let me repeat that, you have to do something different about the calories in or the calories you use to lose weight. Ideally you'll do both. Weight loss is 80% what you eat and 20% exercise, so you can look at that exercise as the extra plus in getting weight off. But you will not lose weight without changing how you eat. Besides telling people they have cancer, this is probably the worst news I have to give people on a daily basis. No one wants to hear that they have to change how they eat to lose weight. And you can probably buy 10 diet books that will tell you that you can lose weight and eat whatever you want. But, they are wrong. Your body, as you age, uses less calories, but you haven't changed the way you are eating. Remember, that's how we started this. You are gaining weight but you haven't changed what you are eating. But, your body has changed what it needs, so you feed it the same amount of calories as usual, but it doesn't need them all, so it stores the rest as fat in case you need it later, like on the beach, I guess. It's the cruel truth.
So, now what? Well, we learn about nutrition and we eat smarter. I want you to eat, I want you to feel full and satisfied. But we have to outsmart this aging thing. Again, I am counting on the fact that you have fixed any hormone, thyroid or nutritional imbalances. Because, honestly, if you don't, just eating differently will probably not result in much weight loss, if any. I think the most ironic thing about aging and food, is the years that your body can't eat anything it wants without gaining weight are the same years you actually value a really good meal or a fine wine. I think it's unfair that in our 20's McDonald's does nothing to ruin our wonderful figure, but creme brulee in the 40's is stored right in our thighs.
So, my pearls on weight loss are as follows:
No dairy - not worth that fat. Just substitute rice milk, almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk for any dairy product you consume - milk, yogurt or cheese...You may have to shop at the health food store or Whole Foods to find rice milk cheese or soy ice cream sandwiches. And vary it up, you don't need to make every dairy substitute rice or soy, sample around with all of them so you don't develop any food allergies. Seriously, how many fat vegans do you know? None, give up dairy. Your stomach will thank you. Almost all Irritable Bowel Sufferers should have given up dairy the day they were diagnosed. And if you have to have diary, you probably want to take some digestive enzymes to help your body break it down. We aren't born with any cows milk digestive enzymes, hence the problem.
Control your portion size. Too much of any food group will be stored as body fat. This goes for carbs, proteins, fats and sugars. So too much of anything can make you gain weight. Use a smaller plate, like the divided plates we used in the cafeteria in grade school. Put some steamed veggies in the biggest area, and meats and carbs in the smaller areas.
Make sure you eat some protein every 3 hours. Whether it's a meat source, a handful of nuts, a piece of soy cheese, a protein bar or a protein shake, make sure you have some protein intake at every meal and snack. This also helps you feel full too.
No white foods - switch from white bread to wheat bread (although I'm very skeptical that any woman over 35 needs bread, ever), switch from white pasta to wheat pasta, white rice to brown rice, white potatoes to sweet potatoes. Make all your carbohydrates complex instead of simple. Again, you will feel fuller, and all these complex carbs are much higher in dietary fiber, which helps fight constipation. Experiment with other grains - quinoa, barley, couscous...be careful not to over use wheat, alot of people have wheat and gluten allergies that may cause you to feel worse.
No artificial sugars - My favorite plant based sweetener is Xylitol. It has been in your gum, toothpaste and mouthwash for years. Now you can buy a bag of this white powder at the health food store and use it anytime you would use sugar. It is 400 times sweeter than sugar, so a cup of sugar equals about a teaspoon of xylitol, so read the conversion instructions on the bag so you don't ruin your cake. But it also has 1/4 of the glycemic index of sugar, which means it won't cause a sugar spike, and then sugar crash. All diabetics should use Xylitol. Stevia is also a good plant based sweetener. Also honey, agave syrup, brown rice syrup....Just no Equal, Splenda, Nutrasweet, or aspartame. Toxic.
Buy organic - I just don't see any health benefit from pesticides or growth hormones in our food. If you buy non organic, use a fruit/veggie wash. But you should really try to buy organic if the food does not have a pretty good peel on it to protect it from pesticide spray.
Try to eat meat free a few times a week. Back to that animal protein concept, we are just not meant to break down so much animal proteins. It is a lighter feeling when you eat meat free, but it really helps with weight loss.
Eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. But avoid pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe and raisins. When you learn about glycemic index, you will learn these for fruits have the most glycemic index, so they have a lot of natural sugar. Sugar is stored as fat, so high sugar will get converted to fat. Visit www.lowglycemicdiet.com to learn what the glycemic index is of any food, and you'll see where Atkins and South Beach get their good and bad fruits and vegetables. It's all about the natural sugar content, and the less sugar in, the less fat you could store.
Eat your fruit with a protein source. An old diabetic nutrition trick to keep blood sugar stable is to complement your sugar intake with some fat to avoid spikes in blood sugar, which can lead to the "sugar high - sugar low" rollercoaster. When you come off that sugar high, you crave sugar again, then you eat sugar again, and the roller coaster starts over again. This process of eating sugar, secreting insulin to cover the sugar, then having low blood sugar, then craving sugar is very fatiguing to your body. Avoid it by keeping your sugar stable.
Do a cleanse, not a bad idea to get the intestines cleaned out, almost every patient that tells me they did a cleanse feels better.
Consider doing a green drink everyday to get some superfood nutrients. Pick a green powder at the health food store that has all the veggies, wheat grass, barley grass, spirulina, bee pollens....You need to add them to a pretty strong juice like blueberry, acai, or carrot to make them taste good, but again, my patients swear by them. Lots of nutrients packed into this one drink.
Get some books on nutrition. Some of my favorites are The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno, All the Dr Oz books, like You, The Owners Manual or You, On a Diet, or From Belly Fat to Belly Flat by CW Randolph. Or visit some websites like www.lowglycemicdiet.com or www.foodmatters.tv. Knowledge is power.