(Eggs are a wonderful diet friendly food. Herbed Baked Eggs)
I got an email from a reader this week that I thought most of us ask at one time or another, so I thought I would share the question and my thoughts with you all.
I’m just beginning to delve into Nourishing Traditions recipes. Even though we’ve bought organic for several years, these recipes are so wonderful! They seem to work well on my tummy…yogurt, kombucha, etc. Do you have any insight into how to lose weight and still keep these recipes in our collection? Maybe it’s my portion sizes? Well, if you have some insight to share, that would be wonderful. I don’t know if you’ve ever needed to lose weight, but it’s frustrating. I am walking and doing strength training, but just don’t want to follow a “diet” with all the counting, etc.
What a great question! The vast majority of us have to deal with weight loss at some point in our lives. To state the obvious, I am no health or weight loss expert. But I am more than willing to share what I know and what has worked for me.
When many of us were introduced to eating nourishing foods, we wonder how conducive it will be to weight control or loss. I have become convinced that eating nourishing food is the best way to maintain or get to your healthy weight. I emphasis healthy weight because some people desire to be abnormally skinny. That takes more extreme, unhealthy measures to maintain. But the majority of us want to just stay at a healthy weight, and I think we can do that via nourishing eating habits. Here are some of the things that I think important to meet that goal.
Keep Your Blood Sugar Levels Even
This is something that we should all be working to maintain because unstable blood sugar can lead to a variety of health problems (diabetes being the obvious one). But it also has effect on our waistline. When we get low blood sugar, we have to eat something to get it back up again. We may not need the calories or the nutrition, but we do need stable blood sugar, so therefore we eat more. To stave this off, we should eat in a way that keeps our blood sugar more even. To do so avoid the obvious offenders-simple carbs and refined sugar. Avoid them like the plague.
Soaked grains are wonderful, but you may want to limit them somewhat also. I wouldn’t take them all the way out (I don’t think that’s healthy for most of us), but I would watch how much you eat. This is my down falling. I have to watch how many carbs I eat because of some health issues I have, and I am often surprised at how much carbs I have consumed! Moderation is the key. You will probably have to “test” yourself to see how careful you need to be about carbs. Most people only need to limit them somewhat, while others need to be much more careful.
Instead of eating lots of carbs, concentrate on eating fat, meat, and vegetables. Yes, you all heard right, FAT! If you don’t eat enough fat you will get hungry sooner, eat way more carbs, and have blood sugar drops more easily. Plus, you won’t absorb nutrients correctly. Coconut oil and butter are especially helpful for weight loss. Fat doesn’t make you fat, but sugar forming food sure does! Speaking of which, you should also limit naturally sweetened desserts as well. Have them as a treat, not an every day occurance.
Make Coconut Your Friend
Coconut (especially coconut oil) is an amazing food and this is one of the most important tips I can give. I am hoping to post soon about it’s amazing health benefits, but for this post, you should know that it is a great tool in losing weight. It’s true that coconut oil has less calories than other oils, which could be a plus. But the real benefit for weight loss is two fold. First, you burn it directly. Your body doesn’t process coconut oil the same way, but sends it directly to be used as energy (instead of packing it on your hips). Secondly, it helps reset your matabolism. Many of us suffer from weight problems because our metabolism is moving to slowly. Coconut has the potential for turning it around for you.
Ideas for using it
In Eat Fat, Lose Fat (which I will talk about in my next post), Sally Fallon suggests taking 1-2 tablespoons of coconut oil in a mug of hot tea, 20 minutes before you eat. This gets your metabolism going before you start each meal. It also helps you feel a little fuller, which could also be quite helpful. Coconut oil, like mentioned before is very good for you. So good for you, that it could even cause you to detox if you have certain health issues (though I never experienced that effect). Therefore, I suggest that you gradually add it into your diet.
You can use coconut oil in a variety of ways in cooking. For example, I like to fry my eggs in it, make fried rice with it, and pop my popcorn in it (we also melt extra to pour over). You can also add a few tablespoons to blended drinks (like smoothies, though that could be too sugar forming for some). If you are going to have a dessert, you can make many delicious desserts with coconut milk (like chocolate ice cream!)
Coconut milk Ice cream
I am hoping next week to share more about coconut oil, and it’s amazing health benefits.
Stay tuned for many more tips and resources on weight loss tomorrow!
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Stacy
Great tips Kimi.
I am really enjoying your blog.
Stacy
Badger
That coconut milk ice cream is the BEST ice cream I have ever tasted in my life. I can’t thank you enough for sharing the recipe! (And hey, you can make homemade “magic shell” topping for it with virgin coconut oil and good-quality eating chocolate! It will be liquid at room temperature but will get hard when you pour it on the cold ice cream, with NO trans fats like the stuff you buy at the store. Yum!)
Donna
I will have to try that ice cream and I can hardly wait until the next part….I’ve been looking for more ways to get the coconut oil into our diets! 🙂
Sherry
Great tips! I actually have the book on hold for me at the libarary when whoever checks it out brings it back. 😀
Alison @ Wholesome Goodness
I liked your idea of adding coconut oil to smoothies. I’ve been doing that for about a week, and it’s working well for me. It definitely keeps me full longer. To keep the sugar content of the smoothie low, I use kefir, yogurt, or plain milk as a base, a few frozen strawberries (or another low sugar fruit), some greens (either a powder or some fresh lettuce leaves), stevia, coconut fiber, and a raw egg or two. When combined with the coconut oil, this is surprisingly low-glycemic. Bananas, pineapple, mangos, and other high-sugar fruits are a definite no-no for me. 🙁
Kimi Harris
Stacy,
Thanks so much!
Badger,
I am so glad that you liked it. 🙂 It’s definitely a favorite around here! Thanks for the tip about the magic shell! that sounds so great! I will have to try it, for sure!
Donna,
I am really working on upping our amount of coconut products in our diet, so I will definitely be posting things soon that work for me. 🙂
Sherry,
I hope you enjoy it, when it comes in. I found it quite helpful (especially the second time I read it).
Alison,
Thank you so much for sharing how you make your smoothies. That was very helpful for me. We used to do smoothies a lot, until I had to start watching my sugar levels (I have minor yeast issues). That sounds like something I can have though! I would just have to use a diary free product for the base.
Audra Krell
This is a great post. Very well done. I appreciate the in depth descriptions and reasoning. It all makes sense! Thanks for taking the time to explain this important topic.
Lauren
You and I are definitely on the same page here! That coconut milk ice cream looks scrumptious, by the way. Love your blog.
How to lose weight effortlessly and maintain it for life without counting anything–Atkins, free of any refined foods and chock full of healthy fats like coconut oil! Any low carb plan would do the trick, really. I’ve been doing it for a year, and never count anything any more because the food is so nutritious and satisfying! The most important positive aspect of it is that more and more studies are confirming that less carbs and more natural fat equals better health. Hopefully the advice seeker finds a plan that works for them, which is key to success over the long term. 🙂
Kimi Harris
Audra Krell,
You’re welcome! I am so glad that it was helpful. 🙂
Lauren,
Thanks! I am glad that you have been enjoying my blog. I think that some low-carb diets work very well for many people, though I have some concerns with the strict ones for long term. However, most of us eat way too many sugar forming food. It’s part of our food culture. I have to remind myself not to fall into that trap. 🙂
Alison @ Wholesome Goodness
What about using an unsweetened hemp milk or some of your coconut tonic as a smoothie base? Or maybe a homemade almond nut milk? I wonder what those would be like.
I understand what you mean about ditching smoothies because of sugar issues. I went through the same thing, particularly since most recipes call for high sugar fruits and honey. After doing some more reading, though, I decided to give them another shot with lower glycemic intredients. That’s one of my new experiments. So far, so good.
cathy
The coconut ice cream sounds delish! Going to give it a try. Nice blog!
Siobhan
Wow…thanks for the post. This was really helpful and I am definitely going to try the tea with coconut oil in it. I love coconut oil, I get a great deal on it from VitaCost they have a huge tub for $20. Great deal. If you never bought from them then say I refered you and we both get $10. 🙂 More coconut oil for everyone.
Blessings
Siobhan