I have struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. Always trying one diet or another. And if you have been on a “diet” before, you probably know that once you go off the diet, the weight comes back and then some. I did the yo-yo thing for years. It wasn’t until I got rid of the diet mentality and made my focus healthy living, that things started to change.
In my experience, I found that making a plan is the best path to success for weight loss. It’s a simple 4 step plan. Implementing it can make all the difference. I promise!
But first, let’s go over the top three plans to assist with weight loss. These are not diets. These are eating plans. I’ve tried all the things over the past 30 years and in my experience, these three are the best.
weight watchers
I loved WW because there were no restrictions on what I could eat. If I wanted french fries, I ate french fries. If I wanted cake, I ate cake. No cutting carbs or counting calories. I just had to log points for certain foods while other foods were freebies. I learned to listen to my body and only eat when I was hungry. It was a great option for me for a while. I lost a lot of weight and hit Lifetime (goal weight). But as the years went by, I started neglecting everything I learned and weight started creeping back on. Now, as a married mama with two young kids, I don’t have WW money in the budget, so I had to try free options.
Intermittent fasting
A couple of years ago I heard about IF and decided to research it. Gin Stephens book, Fast Feast Repeat, was a wealth of information. Then I stumbled upon The Obesity Code by Jason Fung. Inspired by the health benefits of IF more so than the potential for weight loss, I jumped in and tried various eating windows. I landed on 18/6 with slight variation from day to day to keep my body guessing. While I felt better and had more energy, my weight loss stalled after about 10 lbs. See, to lose weight, IF requires you to eat healthy whole foods and I was still turning to processed foods more than I should. As Gin says, “delay, don’t deny”…but I wasn’t delaying…I wasn’t meal planning. I was winging it which caused me to make unhealthy choices. I knew that I needed to eat healthier, fresher foods, but it felt super overwhelming. You can only eat grilled chicken and green beans so many times. I needed to liven up my food repertoire. But how?
Mediterranean diet
Enter the Mediterranean Diet. Several months ago, a friend of mine on Facebook started posting a bunch of food pictures. She had started the Mediterranean way of eating and enjoyed showing off the meals that she was making. Those meals got my attention. The food looked so colorful and delicious. Fresh ingredients. Fruits, veggies, grains. Limited meats. I started looking forward to her posts to get meal ideas. As a result, I looked into the Med diet and decided that it was exactly what I needed. I didn’t want to get overwhelmed so I chose to temporarily stop IF to focus on collecting and trying recipes with the intention to eventually re-incorporate IF. At this point, my plan is to start a Mediterranean Diet IF combo in 2 weeks. By then I should have a nice long list of delicious recipes and options for both lunch and dinner.
Now, to the easy peasy four step plan.
gather recipes
The first thing that you want to do is gather recipes. Since I am trying to incorporate more Mediterranean food into my eating plan, I usually spend time over the weekend searching for Mediterranean Diet recipes online. When I find one that I like, I add the link to a recipe list. I also have a couple of cookbooks that I like to use.
Here are a couple of my go-to websites for recipe gathering:
make a shopping list
After I decide on 5-6 recipes for the week, I make my shopping list. Mediterranean cooking uses lots of fresh ingredients, so I normally need to get a few things. Believe it or not, I had never used fresh herbs and spices. Always prepackaged. Now, I am obsessed with fresh basil and rosemary!! I want my own herb garden.
My shopping list for the week usually contains mostly vegetables, fresh herbs and cheese. I go through feta and mozzarella fairly quickly.
get food
After I make my list, I get the food. Since 2020, I have relied heavily on grocery delivery. It’s easier and super helpful with my schedule. However, with gas prices as high as they are, I am going back to the store so I can earn .10-$1.00 off each gallon of gas. (Thank you Harris Teeter!)
When I go to the store I try to stay on the perimeter with the fresh foods. These days, half of my cart is filled in the produce section. Some of my staples are:
- Zucchini
- Squash
- Cucumber
- Onion
- Asparagus
- Tomatoes
- Potatoes
- Apples
- Banana
- Grapes
- Basil
- Parsley
- Rosemary
meal prep
After I get home with all of the groceries, I try to meal prep. I am still working on this. I read an article a few weeks ago about storing prepped food in mason jars in the frig. I ordered some glass jars and plastic lids on Amazon, and so far, I have only used them for strawberries. My goal is to spend an hour or so on Sunday’s to cut up peppers, cucumbers, strawberries and anything else I can think of. When I tried to prep my produce in the past it seemed to get soft after a couple of days and I like mine crispy. Supposedly, using mason jars keeps them crispy. I will let you know.
You can prep just by washing and chopping fruits and veggies. Or you can go ahead and prep meals for the week. I don’t have enough room in my frig for that, but if you do, go for it! It will make your life much easier!
I also recently found some incredible mason jar salad prep recipes online that I cannot wait to try. Meals in a jar– who knew?? Maybe everyone…since I became a mama 8 years ago I am terribly out of the loop.
Happy prepping!
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