5 steps of diet plan for optimal weight loss
Step #1
If you eat like most Americans, you have a bunch of packaged snack food in your cupboard. These are among the worst "foods" you can put into your body. Try to cut back on as many of these things as you can.
Add as many fruits and vegetables to your diet as you like. Try to eat at least one salad a day. And don't eat just iceberg lettuce. Use spinach and other dark green lettuce instead. These have a lot more nutrients than iceberg.
An easy change is to upgrade your salt to "Celtic Sea Salt." I've never seen this raw sea salt cause any bad effects on blood pressure. It contains the precise physiological balance of minerals your body needs. You can find the salt in many health food stores.
Drink at least eight glasses of filtered (I prefer quality reverse osmosis filters ) water a day, including one or two at the start of meals. That will help fill your stomach more quickly and cut your calorie consumption. Reduce your alcohol intake to no more than one glass of quality organic red wine or micro-brew beer per day. If you're a coffee drinker, limit yourself to a maximum of two cups each day. And make sure it's organic! You might even try switching to green tea.
I also recommend that you stop drinking soft drinks. If you have a few left in your pantry, you can use them to clean your toilets and car radiators.
Step #3
Buy a juicing/smoothie book and a blender (check the book of Dr Donna Cohen “Quench”). With it, you can put raw fruits and veggies into smoothies, soups, and other fabulous taste sensations. Have a raw fruit and nut smoothie for breakfast. (You can find a lot of recipes online)
Make your own juice and salad dressings. Try to eat animal protein just one time per day. Ease your fat cravings with raw nuts and seeds such as chia seed, flax seed, and hemp seed and soaked overnight to "awaken" them. Germinated nuts and seeds have far more available nutrition than when dormant.
Now that you've made it almost halfway, you might be ready to cross the creek.
Step #2
At this point, you'll need to go through your cupboard and toss out all the packaged snack "food." This means you have to get rid of candy, ice cream, sugar, hydrogenated oil products, chips, and the like. You can hold on to packaged food that has some nutritional value, such as canned fruits and vegetables, etc. Read labels to eliminate products with partially hydrogenated fats.
Increase your fruit and vegetable intake to at least five servings per day. Preferably organic, but should be 100 % natural, seasonal and local.
Cut down red meat to once per week - and make sure it's grass-fed beef or wild game (deer, elk, buffalo - these are now more widely available). Instead, eat more eggs and wild, cold-water fish for your animal protein. Farmed fish and warm-water fish may be heavily contaminated. At best, they have significantly fewer nutrients and omega-3 fatty acids.
Replace some of your meat meals with chicken or turkey, but make sure it comes from free-range organic birds. The meat from birds raised on most farms is very low in nutrients compared to free-range. The meat from free-range birds is leaner, doesn't have antibiotics or hormones added, and is generally much better for you.
If you have a cooked carbohydrate craving, try eating as many bananas at one sitting as you like. If you're nuts about chocolate, try switching to organic dark chocolate. It's not perfect, but it's the best candy around for your health.
Step #4
Try reducing all animal protein (red meat, poultry, and seafood of all kinds) to two to three times per week. Eat more eggs; as they're much easier to digest.
Avoid deep-fried foods of any kind. If you like to stir fry, do so only in organic and extra virgin olive, coconut, or macadamia nut oil. Be sure you don't do this at too high a temperature. Better yet, steam or bake food until it's cooked to perfection. When cooled enough to eat, brush raw butter, flaxseed, or coconut oil on it to satisfy your taste. That bypasses the harm heat does to the oils.
At this point, you'll need to eliminate most canned and jarred products (except for fruits and vegetables you can yourself). For people who enjoy gardening, you can begin a sprout "garden" in your kitchen. That's how you can turn most grains or legumes into an extremely healthy edible "living" food without cooking it.
Try to eat two to four living-food meals each week. That means the entire meal is uncooked. Start out with two each week and gradually add more as you grow comfortable with the preparation.
Step #5
This is the step where almost all meat is dropped from your diet, but you're still cooking many of your vegetarian meals. You won't be completely vegan at this point, as you'll still eat eggs and dairy (and maybe a little fish). As for your dairy consumption, you'll want to find organic dairy. And raw is best, if it's available.
From here on out, there are no packaged foods of any kind! The foods you purchase, whether for cooking or not, must be in a state close to how they came out of the ground. This still enables you to cook whole grains and legumes, but eliminates all pasta (unless you make it yourself from freshly ground grain) and refined products. Avoid anything that says "enriched." You'll want to begin reducing the amount of whole-grain bread you consume.
Try eliminating all animal products, except the organic, raw dairy. Increase your soaked nut and seed intake as an alternative. Even though you've eliminated your meat, try to get down to only a few eggs and one-quarter pound of cheese per week.
Pureeing squash and other starchy vegetables and fruit (such as bananas) provides you with the calories you need. You can make incredibly filling soups with pureed raw vegetables, including squash.