How to Lose Weight Successfully - An Effective Weight Loss Diet Plan for Me

" You look so good! How did you lose all those pounds? "  exclaimed my friends who I have not seen for a little while.

" What did you do?  Did you follow a special diet? Can you please give me your recipes and your diet plan?"    Since I have successfully lost fifteen pounds in the past two months, these are the questions I am bombarded with frequently these days.

Yes, I promised my friends that I would send them the diet plan I followed.
 Here it is:

This is not a quick fix, not those 7 days or 1 week plan. As we know that weight loss in such a short time is just loss of water from your body and it would not last long. You need to consult a doctor before you start on any diet plan.

Mine was an eight week plan, divided into three stages.

Stage A. First 2 weeks
Stage  B.  4 weeks
Stage  C.  Last 2 weeks

2 glasses of water in the morning

Stage A. First 2 weeks

Breakfast

• Start the day with 2 glasses of filtered water mixed with juice of a fresh lemon or lime.
  
   

•    This gets my body rehydrated and start the day.

• After 15 minutes - drink a big glass of raw vegetable juice/smoothie - I used any of the combinations of  fresh raw carrots, celery, beets, spinach, kale. 
•  To make it taste better, I added either and combinations of apples/ bananas, berries, oranges and small amount of  oranges juice to make a tasty smoothie out of it.
• This smoothie is enough to keep me full and energized.  ( My husband bought me a Ninja blender which is the best! We tried different brands and had to take them back and got the Ninja blender which also came with a personal size. This is the one I used, very easy to use and clean. We use it almost everyday now. )
• For protein, I boiled an egg, or sliced avocado, and put it on top of a piece of toasted whole wheat bread.



Veggie smoothies can be very delicious!

•  I also added a mixture of ground flax seeds, almonds and sunflower seeds for extra protein in my smoothie.

Lunch  

• A big serving of salad made of - dark green vegetables such as spinach, mixed greens, carrots etc. For convenience sake, I just bought a box of organic mixed green from the supermarket.  
• having taken the portion I wanted, I sprinkled my salad with currants, cranberries, raw sunflower/ pumpkin seeds, walnuts/ almonds, pecans etc. 
• For protein, I added goat cheese or other cheese cubes, cooked beans or lentils to it.

• Homemade dressing - It's important to eat a salad without smothering it with high caloric dressing loaded with chemicals. I make my own. It's easy and cheap!

Home made dressing with apple/balsamic vinegar

One of the home made dressing - olive oil

•  Take a small wide mouth bottle - Measure 2 tablespoon of  olive oil, 1 tablespoon of balsamic/ wine/ apple cider vinegar into the bottle; add little bit of freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.
•  
•  Close lid of bottle, shake it hard for 10 seconds. Viola! I've got myself a tasty healthy dressing!   
• After I eat a big salad with all the greens, nuts,  cheese and beans, I am usually quite full.
• I could also have fish or sliced of cooked chicken.

Snack

• Any fresh fruits, vegetable slices, uncandied nuts and seeds mixture

Dinner

I learned about healthy eating!

I went by the portion control principle recommended by the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation:

The 50-25-25 Rule

I put all the food I was going to eat on a dinner plate -  half of the plate filled with salad/ cooked vegetables - 50% of the meal.


The other half of the plate, I divided into 2 halves = 25% each

25% of the plate - filled with carbohydrates such as  rice/ pasta, potatoes, etc.

25% of the plate - filled with protein rich food such as turkey, chicken, fish, tofu, beans etc.

The 50-25-25 Portion Control Rule - Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation

This helped me to know how much carbohydrate and protein food items I was consuming.

 I am never a big meat eater, but I learned that eating a lot of pasta and rice also put weight on me making weight loss difficult.






Food to Avoid

- Anything that is deep fried - french fries, deep fried chicken, shrimps  etc.
- Red meat,  processed food such as luncheon meats, convenient packaged food, TV dinners etc.
- Any food with high sugar contents
- According to Dr. Ox, one should not consume more than 25 grams of sugar per day. Read the label when grocery shopping. Some beverage and juice drinks are very high in sugar. I used to down 2-3 glasses of pure orange juice. I avoided drinking any juice with high sugar content during my diet.


Do not eat anything after 8 P.M.. If possible, I had my biggest meal at lunch and a lighter dinner.

The first two weeks of my diet was not too bad as I was allowed to eat some meat. However, it was not easy saying no to all the sweets, treats at work and at parties. But telling my friends and myself that I was on a diet helped me to be more disciplined and prevented me from binging on high calorie food such as donuts, pastries, and sweet desserts.

It was the second stage of my diet that was more challenging and also very rewarding as I saw my extra pounds melting away right in front of my eyes!

R.T.
Toronto
Recalling the first two weeks of my diet