What's on your plate
You’re pretty sure you’ve got it all happening –
- Exercise
- Food
- Water
- Alcohol/treats
So why isn’t the weight dropping off? Why is the size of your waist/hips/butt still the same as it was weeks ago?
Stay with me on this story -
There’s a number of reasons why you may be plateauing. The one we are going to focus on today is a very simple thing and one that probably goes back to how our mums used to plate up our food, hence how we now plate up our food.
I may be showing my age, but my parents lived through hard times, post world war 2, depression years and years when the food on your plate had to be rationed and cleverly portioned so that it was both cost effective and filling.
Enter the economical carbs – rice, potatoes, pasta etc. These all fill you up and Mum used to put these on the plate first and the majority of the plate was filled with these.
Then on top of this was the protein, quite often a cheap fatty cut of meat in a sauce/gravy (to make it stretch further) and then came the small amount of vegetables. I say small amount, because fresh vegetables were both expensive and not as readily available as they are in our lives now.
Those of our parents who managed to maintain a good weight, did so because their lives were a lot more physically demanding than today’s computer/desk/TV/electronic game driven existence. Through their day to day activities they managed to burn it off. That’s not to say that what they were eating was the healthiest option, but generally it was the best option they had.
So in today’s economy we have a generation who has both knowledge on what we should be eating, access to reasonably priced, readily available produce and so many healthy recipes out there to choose from that this alone can be confusing (but that’s a whole other story). It should be easy, shouldn’t it?
After an upbringing where I was taught the old rice on the plate first topped with cheap fatty cuts of meat and a little veg, it takes a bit of turning around.
What you need to look at when you are next plating up your food -
Half of your plate should be full of low starch veggies. Lots and lots of leafy greens, broccoli, beans, cauliflower, carrot, cabbage etc.
One quarter of your plate should be your lean protein
One quarter of your plate should be made up of your good carbs (i.e. sweet potato, brown or basmati rice, wholemeal pasta, quinoa, barley, pumpkin)
Leave the white bread, white long/short grain rice, white pasta for treat night if you really crave it. It really doesn’t have as much goodness in it as other carbs.
Think about putting quality into your body and quality is what you will get back from it.
