Calories Count

DON'T COUNT THE CALORIES – MAKE THE CALORIES COUNT

We are what we eat. The better our decisions for fuel, the greater the benefits will be to health. Tasty, nutritious, well-balanced and freshly prepared foods, eaten mindfully, chewed and assimilated with our digestive enzymes, – reasonable portion sizes, digested calmly and gratefully received in to the body.

Good fats, organic fresh or lightly steamed vegetables and naturally farmed meat or wild caught seafood.

First measure the daily calories required, dependent on your age and amount of movement/exercise and mental focus required. Keeping a close eye on the calorie count for three days, should, by the third day, indicate signs of hunger/satiety. Depending on the goals, tweaking the daily calorie total amounts over the next three days, will help to maintain, gain or lose weight. 

There are many things affecting weight. Water retention is a common cause for weight gain. Lunar cycles affect water behaviours, sodium levels affect water retention. Foods that soak up water, like bread increase water retention and foods that contain toxins which will need flushing through the system, cause water retention. 

Our processed foods are full of poisonous chemicals, which will cause chronic illnesses over time. Artificial sweeteners, preservatives, flavour enhancers and cheaper substitutes for things like cocoa butter in chocolate bars, or fructose taken in exchange for what's become a highly taxed sweetener, sugar. These main health destroying culprits are called the deadly 7.

Eating processed foods such as white flour based pizza, which often use seed oils for the cheese (oxidative polyunsaturates linked to heart disease) and other highly processed grain-based meals – particularly foods with bleached flours, which contain certain gut biome destroying preservatives like Benzoic Acid, used as it retains appearance of fluffy white bread seemingly indefinitely, but also kills the micro organisms in our gut, affecting digestion, plus causing inflammation or auto-immune problems such as irritable bowl or Chromes disease.

To effectively lose weight, plus reduce chubby appearance, cut back on all the white foods. Opt for lean organic meat and non-farmed fish. Meat fills you up, but takes energy to break down in the body, to reduce the calories we take on. Also having raw vegetables, which have to be properly chewed to digest properly,  stop us from filling moths too quickly between mouthfuls. While pastas, breads, mashed potato and rice can increase energy levels for greater performance, the body becomes increasingly more inefficient at digesting the meats, fats and raw vegetables in favour of  quick sugar fix simple carbohydrates.

Drinking alcohol while eating is also another counter productive way to consume calories. The body will always revert to the simplest and most efficient methods and while energy sources in alcohol are being introduced, the more complex and more satiating  energy bringing foods, will only be partially digested or  stored as fat around the body.

Timings for eating food are also key for making sure our foods are digested properly. Eating a light portion of food first thing, such as fruit, allows the stomach to prepare for the day.  If a bigger breakfast is required, delaying up to 12 hours from the evening meal on the night before, helps the digestive system to reset with a mini fast. Alternatively, make lunch a hearty meal and leave the evening meal to be light again, such as a soup. Eating before 7pm, allows three hours for the stomach to digest and the optimal time for turning in around 10-10.30pm, makes for a better night's sleep.