How to lose weight without restricting food groups
I am excited to share with you how to lose weight without restricting food groups. So many diets shame certain foods. If I could tell you that you can even lose weight while eating candy, ice cream, chips, whatever you like – would that completely change your perspective on weight loss? It definitely did for me.
Restricting food groups just doesn’t work.
For YEARS I never bought chips and wouldn’t dare keep ice cream in the house. These foods were too sinfully delicious and would surely cause me to gain weight. I had stamped them with a big red X: “UNHEALTHY”.
Despite not consuming these foods, and eating what I considered to be healthy foods, the scale kept going up. I was not a picture of health, and I wasn’t even physically, emotionally, and mentally feeling that great either. Something wasn’t working.
weight loss really is a journey.
Weight loss can be frustrating. It was and has been for me. I used to just tell myself that if I wanted to lose the weight I could. Or I was eating healthy so this just must be my new body type. I had had a child and had turned 30 after all. But something about this issue just kept getting to me. The scale also kept going up despite eating “healthy”. Though I was believing that I could drop 10 pounds if I wanted to, I wasn’t really sure how to do that either.
does restricting food groups work for some?
It seemed like so many people around me had these quick fixes involving cleanses or fad diets and would drop significant weight in a week. I could technically use one of these techniques to lose my 10 pounds, but it just didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t seem like a long-term fix and a lot of these options seemed illogical and involved restricting food groups. I wasn’t feeling the grapefruit diet, or even carnivore. I can hardly imagine the potential consequences to restricting food groups of God-given food? Certainly this isn’t sustainable, healthy, or practical.
Insert learning about macros.
don’t run away, hear me out.
Read here, and I’ll give more information on how I discovered macro counting. It was a huge emotional and mental hurdle for me, but I’m so glad I finally conquered my fears and made the jump.
How to Track Macros
How to calculate macronutrients - an actually moderate, flexible, and completely customizable way to lose weight that I found worked with my Christian beliefs and family lifestyle
Tools
- Kitchen Scale
- MM+ app
Instructions
- Find out your custom macros. There are a few online sources for this, I used this one which is associated with this group which will give you some personalized guidance. Alternatively you could use this book for men or this one for women - I was able to request from my library. The numbers may differ slightly depending on the calculator but it will give you a general idea and starting point.
- Measure to hold yourself fully accountable with what you are eating. To be accurate, you must measure your food and drink on a food scale.
- Calculate nutrition facts. These are readily available online. USDA has a database for food data and another great one is Nutritionx which I usually look up most things.
- Track to see how what you are eating compares to what you should be consuming in a day. Using an app like this ($3 one-time fee), a journal like this or even a regular notebook.
- Keep on going and refining your process. This is a lot of work and a new habit to form but it is worth it to learning how to fuel your body properly to FINALLY feel in control of your body and its physical outcomes, and to be more in tune with yourself and your needs. Time is going to go by anyways! Might as well work at something that will create positive change in your life 🙂
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The numbers you receive from the calculator are scientifically verified numbers. Despite the fact you may need some tweaks or you may have individual challenges, it is simple “in and out”. You must burn more energy than you consume to burn off some of your stored energy (fat), which results in weight loss.
Once you have a few days of data, you may be shocked at your over consumption of certain macronutrients and your under consumption of others. As i’ve gotten older I had desired protein less and less. Now that I’ve increased to the healthy range for my body, I FEEL so much better, mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is not even considering the benefits of weight loss.
finally free mixed with the truth hurts.
Despite the perceived severity of tracking everything I was eating, I found there was a surprising element of freedom. I was being held accountable, even though it upset me sometimes. There was truth staring me in the eyes and I could no longer lie to myself about what I ate. I couldn’t lie to myself concerning whether the food was within nutritional guidelines for my health or not. Despite how it is hard to see the facts sometimes, it still felt a lot better than lying to myself that I could just lose ten pounds if I wanted to.
Even though I was over consuming some macronutrients and under consuming others, it didn’t mean I couldn’t include these foods at all. For the first time in years, I have my big red X “forbidden” foods in my house and I am slowly but surely losing weight (also for maybe the first time ever!) Isn’t that wild?! I could still use butter, eat ice cream, chips, cook bacon, and eat at other people’s houses or at a restaurant.
I was shocked when I realized that I had psychologically “stamped” certain foods as unhealthy when there was no actual truth in it. Eating too much or in an unbalanced way was what was technically unhealthy, not any particular red X “forbidden” food item.
Let’s be realistic- not restricting food groups works best for REAL LIFE.
When you cut out food groups, you are ignoring the inevitability that you will eat these things. And the guilt of breaking the habit and “indulging” in these “forbidden” foods will inevitably get you off track.
Although it can be hard work physically, mentally, and emotionally, counting macros and staying consistent will help change your long term health habits. These habits have the ability to be perfectly customizable to YOU and your preferences. They are also customizable to the ebb and flow of life’s seasons. The result will be bettering your life and health FOR GOOD. Albeit painful at times, responding to truth and living in a place of reality is GOOD for us and will produce good fruit in our lives.
FOLLOW ME FOR MORE!
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If you need to get consistent with your self care, read here <3
Purchase a kitchen scale (which you probably already have one if you’re baking bread!) here!
If you want to know more about how to track macronutrients to meet your health goals read here!
If you’d like an example of a quick dinner meal we enjoy check this out!
