I shared yesterday about how we often approach losing weight the wrong way.
We decide to temporarily cut back on all the things that we love so that we can reach some magical weight, because we figure weight is the problem.
I’ve even heard people say that: “he has such a great metabolism he can eat anything and not gain weight!”, as if as long as you’re not gaining weight, anything goes.
Weight is not the problem. Eating the wrong things that don’t actually nourish your body properly is.
When we focus on weight, then we take a short-term approach. We’ll spend this year getting down to our ideal weight, everything will be fine and then we can go back to doing what we want to do.
What if that’s totally wrong? I was sharing about the Ultimate Healthy Meal Planning Bundle yesterday, which is on sale RIGHT NOW, but which will go away forever on Monday at midnight EST. It’s over $2400 worth of ebooks and courses to help you get healthy, and it’s only $29.97.
I’ve been devouring the products over the last few weeks as Keith and I have been driving around in our RV, and I want to share a 8 tips I’ve learned that can help you!
1. You Don’t Have to Eat Less to Lose Weight and Feel Better
I love this intro to the ebook Creating Wealth–all about how to create nutritional wealth in the body. Maybe I like it because she used my name and sounded like she was talking exactly about me!
Sheila is a busy, working mom and she often neglects to take care of herself, as she is always tending to the needs of her husband and children. Because of this, she has been “borrowing” against her own nutritional bank account for years. Her body has even adapted to this by decreasing her appetite, which just perpetuates the problem. As a result, Sheila now has chronic bloating, is overweight, and has low energy. She restricts her food intake and counts calories to try to lose weight.
What is wrong with Sheila’s approach? She is trying to refill her bank account by restricting her intake of food, which restricts her body’s access to the very nutrients she most needs to heal. Something is fishy here.
When you’re trying to lose weight, you think in terms of “what foods won’t make me fat?” and “what foods are low calorie”? We don’t think in terms of “what foods are high in nutrients that my body needs?”
Your body DOES need food! Every single one of our cells depends on nutrients to function well, and if you’re not giving your body nutrients, then you’re going to feel lethargic, bloated, and achy all the time.
Tip: Stop working so hard on restricting calories and start working on eating foods that are good for you.
Sheila’s soapbox here: That’s why asking “how do I not deprive my family when I need to lose weight” is the wrong question! EVERYBODY should be eating healthy, especially kids, because they need the nutrients to grow.
2. When You Crave Something–Eat Something!
Dieting is the worst thing you can do for your body. You’re always grumpy, always hungry, and you train your metabolism to store fat.
Here’s something important I’ve learned: when I crave chocolate and sugar, I’m usually just hungry. The craving is not bad; it’s my body’s way of saying “I need something!”
So now I just have seconds at lunch, even if it’s an hour after I had “first lunch” (I find I’m worst in the early afternoon!)
Nicole Jardim’s Ecourse “Fix Your Blood Sugar” talks about the importance of figuring out what to eat when and listening to your body. Too often we try to just punish our bodies and ignore them rather than listen to their cues. I’m not saying to eat every time you think of food; certainly make sure you’re not just stressed, sad, or bored. But if you are hungry? Eat!
Tip: When you’re hungry, eat! Eat more frequently, and eat a wider variety of things.
3. Healthy Food Totally Tastes Good
But that’s the hard part, isn’t it? What if the food that we love is really, really bad for you?
That doesn’t mean that healthy food tastes bad. No, it may not be a cheese-infused lasagna with grease pooling up on top that tastes so amazing. But a lasagna with less cheese, a better cut of meat, high quality ricotta cheese, and lots of real tomatoes and onions and garlic and even chopped up really small peppers, carrots and mushrooms can honestly taste amazing, too. And it’s so much better for you! The bundle has over 1,400 recipes that will help you see that eating well and giving your body what it needs isn’t about depriving yourself. It’s just about seeing food differently.
Tip: Don’t tell your family it’s healthy. Just start making real food recipes!
4. Don’t Eat Carbohydrates By Themselves
An apple sounds like a healthy snack, right? Well, it’s a lot better for you if you pair it with cottage cheese or peanut butter.
We need to stop thinking about calories and start thinking about body chemistry. My absolute favorite resource in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is this great book: Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism. I learned so much about what to eat and when to eat it, and I’m starting to put it into practice now! Maria says,
So often we focus on calorie reduction for weight loss because we are told metabolism comes down to calories in, calories out. This is really only one piece of the puzzle. If you are eating 500 calories of carbohydrates at a meal you are going to be storing a lot more fat. However, if those 500 calories are a combination of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, you could actually burn fat!
5. Change the Oils You Use to Cook
This is the biggest change I made in my eating–and likely the most important one. I had learned in the 1990s that we were all supposed to move away from saturated fat and move towards “healthy” fats, like canola oil. So I dutifully started looking down on people who still bought butter and stocked up on canola oil.
But canola oil has so much processing involved. Pure canola oil actually smells horrible and is quite an awful colour. So they dye it and add stuff to it so it doesn’t smell terrible.
And it really isn’t good for you.
I only use four fats: coconut oil, butter, beef tallow, and olive oil. In The Healthy Home: Transform Your Home Room by Room, Erin Odom explains how these are the only fats you need–and she warns you why you shouldn’t cook with olive oil!
Tip: Get rid of the margarine. Bring back the butter!
6. Let’s Embrace Fat Again!
The 90s were oh, so wrong. They told us not to eat avocados and nuts and seeds because they were high in saturated fat. They told us not to eat full-fat dairy products. They told us to stay away from egg yolks and almost all animal meats.
Turns out our bodies need fat! Fat isn’t the problem. Refined sugar is. In Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism, Maria explains,
If heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, you would expect to find an increase in animal fat in the American diet. Actually, the reverse is true. From 1910 to 1970, the amount of animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62% [of all fats], and butter consumption dropped from 18 pounds per person per year to 4. During the same period the percentage of vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%. WOW! I think we found the problem!
Tip: Don’t be afraid to put butter back into your diet. But try to use healthy baking recipes instead of those that contain a lot of refined sugar!
7. You Don’t Have to Cut Out All Desserts
Chocolate is amazing. And dark chocolate is heaven.
And chocolate can actually be part of a healthy diet! One of my favourite resources in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is Living Healthy with Chocolate, a book of 103 chocolate recipes that are actually good for you! I LOVE chocolate zucchini bread, and her recipe is amazing. But there are also chocolate peppermint sticks, chocolate truffles, chocolate chip cookie dough brownie, and so many more!
Seriously, it’s just about the QUALITY of foods you put into your body. Stay close to real foods with real nutrients and minerals, and steer clear of processed foods and refined sugars with nothing good in them, and you’re fine.
Here’s how Adriana Harlan explains it:
By allowing delicious, typically “forbidden”, foods to be a regular part of the diet, it prevents feelings of deprivation from undermining your efforts. Better yet, the “treats” are just as healthy as the regular food, so even picky eaters, such as a child diagnosed with Autism or Failure to Thrive or an adult suffering from Alzheimer’s, are sure to find something that tempts the appetite.
But what’s healthy about chocolate? Raw cacao is massively high in antioxidants–rating 95,500, compared to blueberries at 2,400.
Tip: Experiment with some yummy chocolate recipes and then make a ton ahead of time and freeze them, so when you have a craving for sweets you can eat “healthy” ones!
8. Don’t Have “Empty Calorie Foods” Around the House
The only thing my daughters remember about a cruise we took when they were 5 and 2 1/2 is that the cruise ship had Froot Loops. That was such a huge deal, because at our house we never had “sugar cereals”. In fact, I never bought bags of cookies (I did occasionally bake some), potato chips, pop, or traditional snack foods. And my kids grew up just fine.
When we went to a party the other night, the girls and I all enjoyed some potato chips. In fact, we probably ate too many! And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating stuff like that occasionally. But let it be “special occasion” food. Keep it out of your house. It’s not like you’re on a diet, so you’re depriving your kids of potato chips because you can’t have them in the house. Your kids shouldn’t have them anyway.
There are other snacks to eat! So just don’t buy the stuff. If you want to help your husband lose weight, this is one of the best things you can do, too.
Tip: Think of junk food as “special occasion” food, and keep it out of the cupboard!
There’s actually a ton more in the bundle that I’m so excited to learn more about that I haven’t told you here. There are a TON of resources on “gut health”, and how inflammation can really hurt nutrient absorption. There’s tons on hormones and how to use probiotics. And for parents, there are a ton of books on how to get your kids to eat healthier!
If you’ve had a constant struggle with food, then the Ultimate Healthy Meal Planning Bundle is for you! You get 83 accessible-right-away resources and 16 physical bonuses (worth $250 themselves!) for just $29.99. And if you buy before midnight tonight, you’ll get a free upgrade to an ereader version of your choice (instead of all .pdfs).
I guess for me the biggest change is that I’ve stopped seeing food as a constant struggle that I’m always fighting against, and I’m starting to see food as a choice that I make to make myself feel good. Food is not anything bad; my body needs food. So what am I going to do to take care of my body? It’s a mind shift change, and it’s really helped me feel more energetic (without the use of caffeine anymore!) and far less lethargic. I hope it can help you, too!

Love this! Thank you for the good tips. What foods did your girls like to snack on as kids besides fruit? I would love to move to healthier snack options for my kids (ages 3 and 1).
Hi Amy,
Snacks my kids love besides fruit:
Veggies like carrots, cucumbers, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes (I cut up a bit of everything, the more color on the plate the better they like it)
Dips like hummus or plain white creamy cheese to go with the veggies
Plain yoghurt with frozen fruit and berries (I sweeten a bit with honey)
Dry fruit and nuts
Hard boiled eggs
Banana pudding (mash up a ripe banana and add plain cocoa)
Healthy choc balls (dates, a bit of coconut liquid, shredded coconut, cocoa powder – throw all in blender, form balls, roll in some shredded coconut, cool and keep in fridge, eat 😉
Sometimes I bake cookies or banana bread or cupcakes and we’ll have some for snack. Not happening all the time though…
But really mostly we eat fruit and veggies for snack I just try to buy a lot of different fruit by season and it hardly gets boring… I never by chips or pretzels or stuff like that (these are reserved for special occasions like long road trips or birthday parties)
Cheese and healthy crackers were a big hit. When they got older, carrot and celery sticks with hummus (well, my youngest ALWAYS loved hummus, even when she was really little. My oldest took til she was 16). Definitely almonds! Sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds were always a big hit, too.
I purchased the bundle yesterday, but I haven’t been on the computer yet to download anything. I can’t wait! I really need this!
My mom used to tell me that if I felt really hungry but there didn’t seem to be a good reason for it, that it probably meant I was thirsty. And I think she’s usually right. Most the time, if I drink something (usually tea because I have to force-feed myself water), after half a glass, I’m not hungry anymore. But if I snack, I don’t feel satisfied even if I’m full.
Side note, but my mom’s the best.
So true! I try to do herbal teas, too, throughout the day and it’s working really well!
Oh, another kind of fill-you-up drink is cream teas. I think that’s what you call them? I’ll do an Earl Grey with a bit of milk two or three times in the morning, and I usually eat a smaller lunch because it makes me feel full. Keeps me from snacking, too.
Although, it’s usually a million degrees here in Texas, so I only do it for, like, two weeks in January. And then it’s iced tea the rest of the time. 🙂
Harney and Sons has a peach and ginger tea which is AMAZING, if you like loose leaf. (It’s black, but most of their black teas have decaf versions.) A little bit of cream and it tastes like dessert. You don’t even need honey or sugar.
I do love loose leaf teas! And I drink a LOT of iced teas, too. We’re in Kansas right now and I was drinking real teas all day yesterday–and it IS really hot. But it’s harder to make iced tea in the RV! Darn.
Herbal teas are great for everything! Tension Tamer by Celstial Seasons is great for anxiety!
I’m totally addicted to carbs. I try to keep down the amount I eat, because it always makes me crave more. I think everyone has to figure out what works best for their body. Healthy doesn’t look one way, that’s for sure. 🙂 Gotta love the health benefits of chocolate.
It really doesn’t, Keelie! I think we all have different bodies and we react differently to things. For me, the problem is my liver. But for my husband it’s really not. It’s more gut health, I think. His liver is fine. I’m amazed at how much there is to learn about all of this, but it’s kind of exciting because I feel like I can actually do something about it!
Dumb question — how do you know your liver is a problem?
I had an MRI a year ago that showed that I had the beginnings of fatty liver disease. But then I took this self-assessment in the Perfect Periods ecourse in the Healthy Living Bundle, too, and it showed the same thing–that the liver was my issue. So I really think there’s something to that! The problem is that I really need to cut out refined sugar, and I LIKE refined sugar. But I shall do it, because I do not want to get sick.
It’s funny how different foods effect people differently. My MIL can’t eat bread, but can eat a lot of rice, while I can eat bread without it worrying me, but if I eat rice at dinner, I can ‘feel’ that I’ve eaten rice until lunch the next day! My husband is quite sensitive to milk and dairy products,and to coffee.
I have so many issues with ’emotional eating’ and am trying to work these out, but it’s a long and hard and winding road!
It is, isn’t it! I find I’m a lot more sensitive to things than my husband is, but as we’ve started to figure this out things have gotten a lot better.
I already left one comment, but here I am again. 😉 I’m really intrigued by these ideas. They make so much sense. For the last 15 years I’ve been a traditional dieter. I lost over 50 pounds, then did a great job of keeping it off, until a couple years ago. A difficult marriage + problems with sleep + less willpower = weight gain. And even if I have a week when I’m really watching what I eat, I usually still can’t lose anything. So I am loving the concept of giving your body what it needs so you can work TOGETHER to drop the weight as you get more healthy.
As I mentioned before, I did purchase the bundle. I’m still working on downloading things. Do any of the resources tell how to make substitutions with the healthy fats for the unhealthy ones? Like if I’m making a quick bread and it calls for oil, would I just use the same amount of melted coconut oil?
Great question, Ashley! I can’t answer that for sure because I haven’t actually been reading the real food books this year–I’ve been concentrating on the ones on hormones and gut health, because that’s something I haven’t really explored yet.
I know when I’m cooking that’s what I do–I just melt the coconut oil or butter and substitute it in like that. But I don’t know if any books talk about it per se. I do know there are a ton of recipes that use healthy fat, and I assume that there are some that talk about how to make substitutions–kind of like there are probably some instructions in the gluten free books about how to substitute some kinds of flours. I know that’s a LOT trickier than substituting fats because the flours don’t all act the same way (rice flour gets all gummed up, for instance). I’ll go check, though, and try to find an answer for you! Hope you love the bundle as much as I do!
I find your 4 oils way too restrictive, there are a lot more healthy oils than just these 4. For example avocado oil, sesame oil, pumkin seed oil, chia seed oil, almond oil, argan oil and sacha inchi oil is especially good for omega 3. I use most of these in salad dressings, some should not be heated.
Absolutely! I love avocado oil, too. And you’re right, there are other healthy fats! But we do need to check how oils react to heat first, because many really shouldn’t be heated, so that’s why I tend to use the others for cooking.
These were all really good points, Sheila. Another one I’d like to add is I cook meals in advance, sometimes with a crockpot if I don’t have time to be over the stove/oven. One of the biggest issues for me was eating stuff that wasn’t very good because I was too hungry to wait and cook dinner. This means that I often eat the same thing for lunch/dinner for a couple days in a row, which I personally don’t mind, it’s worth the benefit to me.
Along with that, I encourage people who are trying to eat healthier to just try one new recipe a week – then the next week, keep using that recipe, and try another new one. It is overwhelming to try to change everything you eat at once. The first time you cook a new dish it can take a long time, but it’s a lot faster after that, and you can build on that. This helped me make longer-term changes in my eating patterns because there wasn’t very much pressure.
Thanks for pointing out that fat is good for you. Did you hear how the sugar industry paid for favorable research (and reinforced the idea that fat was bad)? https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/12/sugar-industry-harvard-research/
I found this article helpful for figuring out my cravings: http://nutritionstripped.com/what-food-cravings-trying-to-tell/?
I’m in my mid-20s now, but struggled with my weight for quite a few years. In high school, I had an eating disorder and I severely restricted my calories. It took several years of eating normally (in my mind at the time, more than I “should”) for my metabolism to get back to normal, and I did temporarily gain more weight, but it’s back to normal now. So I appreciated your point that it’s not about eating less – it’s more about the quality of the food you eat. It’s tricky to grasp this, because there is some truth to the idea that the amount of calories you take in affects your weight. However, it’s hard to overeat when you’re eating healthy foods, and in that context, being strict about calories is really more for higher-level competitive athletes than your average person just trying to improve their health. Even for people who don’t have an eating disorder, repeated calorie restriction (through dieting) negatively affects metabolism. Eating less works short term, but long term, it’s not worth it.
Amen to this post!!! Thanks to everyone for commenting – your insights have helped me along with the post 🙂