The myth of starvation mode

I spent a lot of my life overweight. One day I finally looked at myself and said, “I need to lose weight and fast.” To help me achieve this goal, I learned everything I could about nutrition. While I didn’t drop the pounds overnight (no quick fixes, remember), the excess flab did come off, and I haven’t had any trouble maintaining the results since then.

If your weight loss journey isn’t working out like you’d hoped, you may be eating too much of the wrong stuff or avoiding too many of the right kinds of foods. Here are some nutrition tips to help you lose that stubborn flab once and for all.

If your definition of real food is frozen fish sticks, pasta and canned green beans, we have some work to do. These foods are a small sampling of the processed junk that harms our bodies and causes us pack on the pounds.

When foods are processed, most of the nutrients are zapped right out. So when you eat them, you take in a bunch of empty calories that get stored in your body as fat. Definitely not something you want to happen when you’re on a mission to lose weight.

Real food comes from farms; it is not processed or created in factories. The bulk of your diet should include real foods like fresh vegetables and fruits, grass fed beef, free range poultry, organic eggs, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds and fresh fish.

When you replace the processed junk in your diet with real food, you eliminate unnecessary calories, and you have an easier time losing weight.

Wait! Before you bash me over the head, hear me out. Fat gets a bad rap because it is believed to be the culprit of obesity and heart disease. This is absolutely not the case. Eating fat is not going to make your heart explode or turn your bum into blubber—unless of course, the bulk of your fat comes from unhealthy processed food and trans fat.

Fats that are derived from nutritious foods like olive oil, nuts, fatty fish, avocados, coconut oil, organic eggs and naturally raised meats make meals more satiating and keeps hunger at bay.

When you are trying to lose weight, protein is a must. When you eat protein, your body releases a hormone that helps you burn stubborn fat. Protein also helps you stay full longer so you eat less during the day.

There’s no need to go overboard with the protein. Adding a sensible serving of this nutrient to each meal will do the trick. Some healthy protein choices include beans, fresh fish, naturally raised meats, legumes, free range poultry and organic eggs.

Eliminating processed foods, and adding healthy sources of fat and protein to your diet can help you lose weight faster. Of course, if you really want to see consistent fat burning results, combine your nutrition plan with plenty of exercise.

Healthy nutrition is the key to losing weight and keeping it off. Watch this video to see what I do when I need to lose weight and fast so you can achieve your dreams of permanent weight loss.