I apologize if I repeat myself, but there are some healthy habits I may reiterate in my posts, due to their significance in losing weight, feeling great, and staying healthy. I sometimes need the reminder myself, because until it is ingrained in your brain and an actual "habit" that you don't even think twice about, you still have some work to do in learning to be healthy and making some changes!
Now, the reasoning behind the constantly eating and high protein diet I promote goes back to the days of the cavemen, and considering how the human body is designed. Although we have evolved along with our world, and our bodies are incredible machines, they aren't made to eat tons of fat, lounge around all day, sit at a desk for hours, or even to just eat 3 solid meals a day. The body is designed to hunt, graze, and eat throughout the day because that is what the caveman lifestyle was like, while being constantly active in between your meals. You find food, and eat it when you can. Food consisted of basically protein from meat, and then the fibers and vitamins from the fruits and plant materials that could be harvested. Artificial sugars and processed foods didn't exist; proof that our bodies were not meant to handle or be able to properly digest these types of foods.
Running from a predator, working hard and building muscle were typical for survival. Nothing like we deal with now-a-days where the biggest challenge seems to get the motivation to go take a walk or force ourselves to go to the gym. There once was a time when even getting enough calories to sustain one's self was a struggle. Naturally, we crave fattening, greasy and horrible-for-you foods, because there once was a time that greasy fries, butter, and oil were not things that existed during cavemen times, but if they did, they would have been high commodities to gain the caloric needs and fat to survive.
So if you want to lose weight and have the smokin', lean, and built body of a caveman (I guarantee there was no such thing of an obese caveman!) you basically need to adjust your lifestyle as if you were a neanderthal.
-HIGH protein. It's more challenging as a vegetarian, but no matter where you get your protein from from, you should be eating half your body weight in grams of protein a day. Protein powders in the form of whey, soy or wheat are helpful to do this if you can't get enough protein from your food. Make sure you read the ingredients to make sure there are no additives and that the protein powder is 100% natural, mimicking the natural diet of a cavemen (even if they didn't have access to the atural ingredients we have today.. it's fine as long as it's natural). The powder can be added to many meals especially smoothies, and if it's the flavored kind you can easily just mix it with some water to drink. The cavemen ate high protein diets and that's what our bodies are designed to process. More protein means lean muscle instead of the same amount of gross fat in your body. Yuck!
-Eating OFTEN. Your body will go into starvation mode if you don't eat anything for 2-3 hours. The cavemen would eat throughout the day since most of their time revolved around collecting and finding food, and eating it when they found it. The human body begins to store fat and feed off it's own muscle when it thinks it's starving, which is NOT good for your health or your appearance. It was helpful for the cavemen if they failed at finding food for a day, because they needed energy from somewhere to survive. By not eating you body will think you had an unsuccessful hunt and in turn think it's doing you a favor by storing fat in response to the lack of eating. Trust me.. your body is just a machine so even if your brain knows you're trying to lose weight, the body won't listen to it... it is designed solely for surviving. It's better to eat anything than nothing at all.. however, the healthier and more natural your snack is for each meal the better for your health and in losing weight. Remember- pair a carb with a protein and natural ingredients only! Don't trust the packaging unless you READ THE INGREDIENT LABEL!
-Be ACTIVE. Hunting, building shelters, grazing, and hard work didn't come easy for the cavemen, who were on their feet running and moving all day. Our bodies are designed for constant activity, so the American lifestyle of working a 9-5 in a chair and then coming home to sit on the couch and watch TV doesn't help. Try to incorporate some activity into your day. Join a gym and go 3x a week. If you don't like the gym usually, try some classes they may offer like Zumba, bootcamp or spin to get you engaged, feeling competitive and even having fun while you do it. Go on a walk or a run on your lunch break. Ride a bike where you can instead of driving. Go shopping and volunteer to run the errands, but park your car far away from each store increasing your level of activity. Volunteer to vacuum and do more intense tasks to help you break a sweat. When you're on the treadmill or working out, your body thinks your running to get a kill. Once you slow down and finish your workout, your body is expecting you to eat a portion of the kill you got. So within 30 minutes, you should eat something with a protein boost to give your body the protein it's looking for, or else it will start to cannibalize its own muscle. This will happen quicker than your typical 2 hour time frame because you just had an intense workout and your body NEEDS to refuel ASAP. Ever feel like you're constantly working out and seeing no results? This often is because if you aren't eating afterwards to refuel, you're losing the muscle you gained and just storing more fat as your body tries to compensate for what it lost. You're working out in vain if you don't give your body what it needs. Remember how we are designed.
Hopefully some of these reasons to WHY our body works how it does, you will be motivated to live the cavemen lifestyle (with all of the modern day technology of course). You can try a caveman diet, which I personally know little about because I don't eat meat myself. As long as you're getting lots of protein, trying to limit your fat, eating unprocessed foods with natural ingredients only, and ditching the junk food you'll lose weight if you pair it with some exercise.
Here are a few healthy 2 hour snack ideas for this week:
-Hummus, avocado and tomato sandwich. Slice up half an avocado (high in fat but also high in protein and your omegas), and half a tomato. Spread some hummus onto 2 slices of "sprouted" whole grain bread (found in the frozen section of the supermarket, as natural as your bread can get, totally unprocessed and natural, and has protein too!) Also try black bean hummus for an extra kick. Lay out your sliced veggies onto the bread and make it into a sandwich! Delish.
-Silken Tofu. This stuff tastes like an avocado.. and it's in a creamy consistancy great as a substitute for baking or as an additive in your smoothie (and you won't even taste it). 4g of protein per serving, with NO fat, NO sugar, and also some calcium and iron. Score! You can add it to anything you want. I even eat it by itself.
-Canned convenience. Canned foods aren't necessarily bad for you... with no refrigeration necessary and at a cheap cost, canned veggies, beans and tuna fish are great additives to anything you're cooking, OR good to eat alone as a quick snack. Try mixing a can of green beans, with a can of mushrooms and kidney beans. Quick, convenient, and can be separated into a few tupperwares as quick on the go snacks. Add garlic and spices to give it some extra flavor. Keep some cans in the office for days you forget a lunch or need a pick me up snack every 2 hours. Low calories, and good for you. Tuna can be spread onto a slice of sprouted bread, or mixed with some Italian dressing or olive oil for a less fattening "tuna salad".
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