Food, an ally in your fat loss journey!
Food is one of the most important factors to consider when it comes to attaining peak health, but many of us struggle to understand exactly why food plays such a vital role. We know that food gives us energy, nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and the quality and quantity of energy we receive from food is directly tied to the quality of food itself, but what is the role of food when it comes to fat loss? It might be instinctive to think that the role of food should be diminished or minimized when it comes to optimizing your fat loss strategy, because isn’t it food that makes us fat so we should eat less if we want to be slimmer, right? Kind of, but it’s not quite that simple.
First, we need to understand the difference between real food, fresh food, and food like products. Real food comes from Mother Nature and is not man made or artificial so it’s able to give you all the wonderful energy and nutrients that you need. Fresh food is food that is not preserved, tampered with, dehydrated, frozen, or smoked. Food like products are processed foods, sometimes processed to the point where they should not be classified as food at all and often pumped with GMOs!
It might seem really easy to avoid this dilemma; just eat real fresh foods and stay away from processed or genetically modified food products. Although this is an excellent starting point and is the first rule of nutrition, it’s not a foolproof strategy to ensure you’re getting all the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals your body needs. That’s because even organic foods are typically grown in soil that is depleted of nutrients therefore making the food depleted as well! There’s no guarantee that just because you spent an extra two dollars on organic produce that its actually going to deliver what your body needs.
So then if eating organic real fresh food isn’t enough, how can you tell if the food you’re consuming is allowing you to gain all of the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals your body needs? Traditional doctors will not test for or tell you if your body is lacking in essential nutrients, and even if you don’t have any ‘symptoms’, it is very likely that you could have a vitamin or nutrient deficiency which is preventing you from reaching your full health potential and your fat loss goals.
It seems like a lot of guesswork, but it doesn’t have to be, and you certainly don’t have to go it alone. At Jack Kunkel’s Alternative Medicine, we go beyond the meager capabilities of traditional medicine to provide you with accurate testing methods and analyses to determine underlying deficiencies or imbalances. Let us help you reach your fat loss goals faster, but without the inevitable rollercoaster of weight gain, loss, gain, and loss that comes with poor dieting techniques.
We use powerful supplements that are truly organic whole foods from an American 623-acre farm. Here, all plants are grown in a soil that is 100% free of pesticides and no chemicals are ever used and Ph.D.’s check the soil before the seeds are sown to ensure of the fertility of the soil is optimal! We also use industry leading Carbon Technology to clear your body of harmful toxins; what makes Carbon Technology especially impressive is its ability to travel to the organs and cells to target chemical toxins, environmental toxins, heavy metals, radiation, retroviruses, and viruses as opposed to traditional detoxification methods which only tend to work in the intestines.
Instead of severing your relationship with food to try and lose fat, let us use our decades of experience helping people like you attain their goals. Our philosophy is food first for fat-loss! In this article, you’ll learn that food isn’t your enemy and be able to understand strategies that will keep you full while your fat melts away.
7 Simple Steps for Fat Loss
1. Ask yourself, what is my ideal weight? With that goal in mind, go to www.tdeecalculator.net to calculate your total daily energy expenditure and determine the total calories and macronutrients your body needs in order to achieve it. Once you see your calories and macronutrients, you may question them but trust the process (and the science), be patient with yourself and allow your body to adapt gradually to the changes. It’s important to update your regiments every three weeks because when your body fat and weight change, so will these numbers; stay on top of this to prevent a plateau.
2. Preparedness and record keeping are the key to success. Keep a food journal or track your food using a nutrition tracking app like MyFitnessPal. Regardless of which method you choose, plan for two to three ’days’ worth of food in advance. You should record each mealtime and the number of calories and macronutrients per meal.
3. Portion control and measure your foods. When beginning this program, understanding how much you are ingesting will help you understand any possible struggles. If you choose quality foods, your body will more likely portion control itself because it receives more nutrients. That said, using a food scale is recommended for fat loss! Once you have weighed food for a month, you will naturally become a better judge of food, but that doesn’t mean you should stop using it!
4. “Food quality” is the number one way to keep your metabolism in check for the long-term. Foods that have one ingredient are best; real food that comes from Mother Nature provides you with all the energy and nutrients your body needs to sustain health, so the ultimate goal is to eat quality foods that taste good and are convenient. Vegetables are calorie-for-calorie, the most nutrient-dense food so you should try to have organic veggies at all meals. Other high-quality foods to enjoy are smoothies, salads, organic dark chocolate, whole food berry protein bars, and protein powders. Remember, it’s what you do every day, not every once and a while, so choose quality foods daily!
5. Food quality is critical, but so is being able to sustain your program! This where the 20/80 rule comes into play. A maximum of 20% of your food can be foods that you enjoy and crave, that aren’t necessarily ‘good’ for you. So, if you’re out to eat and want that decadent piece of cake, have it, but make sure it fits into your total calories for the day.
6. Choose the macronutrients that work best for you! This chart shows the ratio to choose from, but can also be found on www.tdeecalculator.net.
Some notes to keep in mind for each of the ratios are:
If you’re carb sensitive, this regimen can be used longer than a month as long as your carbohydrate source is mainly vegetables. If you want to lose fat faster or have hit a plateau, using high protein helps but this should not be used longer than one month in duration. More active individuals (high carbs) are used for people that respond better to carbohydrates as their primary energy source. The goal is not to stay at one ratio for more than six weeks, and the ratios are not as important as food quality and total calories
7. Possibly the most important step for your mental health and overall sanity is to have one “cheat meal” per week; you deserve a break! If you absolutely must have a number, increase 20% of your regular food intake’s total calories. For example, if you eat 1600 calories, increase that by 320 calories (20%), for a total daily calorie intake of 1920. Just be sure to keep the cheat meal to only once per week; have that steak and potatoes with a slice of pie, but remember, this is only a license to have one meal, not snack all day!
Following these 7 steps will ensure that you are using food as an ally in your fat loss journey, but it will not ensure that you are truly getting all the essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body needs to run optimally. Yes, eating high quality fresh food is the key to overall health, but you also need to know whether the health benefits and healing properties of the good food you’re eating is actually working for your unique body and health situation – it’s not a one size fits all situation. At Jack Kunkel’s Alternative Medicine, we can tailor a solution specifically for you and help you understand your body at a much deeper level than traditional western medicine. By testing for nutrient deficiencies and imbalances, using powerful and truly organic supplements, paired with state of the art Carbon Technology for detoxification, we can help you attain your fat loss goals in a quick, safe, and natural way. If you’re ready to see real results, come see us today to see how we can help you!