At Lose Weight By Eating we believe clean eating is the key to weight loss and weight maintenance. We believe the best way to lose weight is by eating a healthy diet full of fat burning foods. Losing weight starts in the kitchen, and what you eat is far more important than how you exercise. This is because weight loss is 70% what you eat and 30% exercise.
You can exercise daily and not see the scale move if your diet is not spot on. With that in mind, I created the Lose Weight by Eating Diet Plan. Below you’ll find a weight loss diet plan that emphasizes the importance of what you eat over exercise. Exercise is part of it too, but food is the main focus because this is Lose Weight By Eating. Best of all, the plan and the recipes are all free because weight loss, real weight loss, shouldn’t cost you a fortune.
Follow the 4 Steps below and try to tune out the noise of the fad diets. This tried and true weight loss plan has helped thousands of people lose weight and keep it off.
The 4 Steps to Clean Eating Weight Loss:
- Remove all processed foods and artificial sweeteners from your diet
- Plan your meals and log what you eat and drink
- Move your body more
- Drink a gallon of water a day
Step #1: Remove all processed foods and artificial sweeteners from your diet.
What is Clean Eating?
Clean eating is the best described as removing all processed, artificial foods from your diet. And instead focusing on healthy, whole, unprocessed foods. Your body is from nature, bring it back to nature and reap the rewards of eating clean, like living a longer, healthier life, have great glowing skin and hair, fast weight loss and healthy weight maintenance. You wouldn’t feed your pet bird cardboard, would you? No, you would feed them nuts and seeds just like the natural food they have in the wild.
It’s time to start thinking of yourself as the bird, feed yourself what humans found and grew in the wild hundreds and thousands of years ago, not “frankenfood” made in a laboratory.
How to Eat Clean
The best way to understand and implement Step 1 is to skip the boxed, pre-made foods. Instead shop the perimeter of the grocery store. By shopping just the perimeter of the grocery store you’ll pick up organic fruits and veggies. Lean protein from the butcher, and freshly baked bread from the store bakery. You’re only buying fresh food. Of course this is more metaphor than rule. Organic pasta, rice and beans are usually found in isles as well are organic whole wheat flour and spices.
Be sure to choose these ingredients in the purest forms, pick up the organic brown rice. Not the box of rice mixture with the spices. The only ingredient on the label should be “brown rice.” You can have your chocolate, but instead of the “sugar free” chocolate candies that are full of artificial sweeteners, have a square of all natural dark chocolate (Chocolate Recipes). As for cheese, choose sharp cheese, you can use less and get the same cheesy goodness, thus saving calories (Cheese Recipes).
Eat More Fat Burning Foods
Top Foods that Burn Fat:
- Hot Peppers
- Green Tea and Coffee
- Whole Grains, Quinoa and Oats
- Grapefruit and other Citrus Fruits
- Lean Poultry and Fish
- Beans and Lentils
- Berries
- Apples
- Almonds, Almond milk and Almond butter
- Eggs
- Greek Yogurt
- Spinach and Broccoli
Step #2: Plan your meals and log what you eat and drink.
I realize this sounds like homework, would it help if we called it studying instead? Planning your meals and logging what you eat and drink is part of this “studying”. You will naturally start memorizing how many calories are in your favorite meals and ingredients.
Best of all you will learn your own eating habits and cravings, so over time you can better plan your meals to suit your cravings. After a couple weeks you may see you consistently have a 3:00 pm craving for carbs. You can head off that craving in advance with a skinny sandwich at lunch. Or, a sweet craving at 10:00 am can be managed with a sweet oatmeal breakfast.
Step #3: Move your body more
Weight loss is 70% what you eat and 30% exercise. Many people often think exercise is more important in weight loss and they disregard the healthy diet part. That is why Step #3 is to move more. You don’t have to train for a marathon to lose weight, however exercise will speed up the process and, perhaps more importantly, tone your body.
Here are some resources to help you get started:
Step #4: Drink a gallon of water a day
Water is key to losing weight. Besides tasting great, studies have proven that drinking water naturally boosts your metabolism along with many additional water health benefits. It fills you up, flushes your system and naturally increases metabolism.
How Much Water Should I Drink to Lose Weight
I recommend you try to drink a gallon of water (3 ¾ liters) a day. This will help weight loss and even in general better health. A gallon of water may seem like a lot… but it’s a good weight loss goal to strive for each day. By having 40 ounces of water in the al morning, noon and night you will stay full and hydrated.
FAQ’s – Frequently Asked Questions
How much weight can you lose in a month?
Each person loses weight at a different rate. The best thing you can do is set reasonable goals. If your goal is too lofty, it not be reached leaving you disappointed and ready to give up.
Often people contact me, disappointed that they lose between 2-3 pounds per week. Then I remind them that a weekly average of 2.5 is 120 pounds lost in a year. Try not to look at the short game, look at the long game, it will keep you motivated.
I have heard a lot of people say they lost between 15-25 pounds the first month. If you want to increase that number start with a Detox Diet Week Weight Loss Cleanse. Then follow up with this plan after the one week detox plan.
How do I stay motivated to lose weight?
Staying motivated to lose weight can be tough, but it’s key to weight loss. When we skip a workout or overeat and use the dreaded words: “I’ll start again on Monday” or “I’ll start again tomorrow”… we are missing a great opportunity. Use this opportunity to learn and move on, to hit our reset buttons. The single most important lesson I can teach you about weight loss is that everyone messes up. It’s the people who mess up and get over it (aka: hit their reset button) that succeed.
It’s also important that you choose reasonable goals. Reasonable goals are paramount! Many people will set lofty goals like “lose 10 pounds this week” then they lose 3 pounds and become unmotivated, when in fact 3 pounds is great. 3 pounds per week is 145 pounds in a year! Set goals you know you can reach. You can always beat the goals! But make sure they are reasonable enough that you are not setting yourself up to lose your motivation.
Lastly, to help you stay motivated I recommend you log your weight loss results. This is helpful as it helps you that you can gather an average. You will always have good weeks and bad weeks, but it’s the average that counts. Every weigh in (only weigh in once per week) write the pounds lost on your calendar. At the end of 8 weeks add up all the weight loss pounds. Then divide by 8 for your 8 week average. This will help you stay motivated and see your results.
Anytime you have a bad week, think of your weight loss average and know this is all just part of the process.
What do I do if I hit a weight loss plateau?
Weight loss plateaus stink. You feel great, the weight is flying off, and then all of a sudden it all stops short. These tips can help you come off a plateau or just a bad week:
- Go back to basics. Go through your meal planners and food logs to see what does not match up. Look for possible processed foods or artificial sweeteners in new foods you’ve added to your diet recently. If you’ve stopped logging or planning your meals, take this opportunity to start again. Most often just that one step will pull you out of a plateau.
- Increase your exercise by 1 hour per week. This can be a Saturday morning hike, or an additional 10 minutes on your daily workout. The important thing is to add an extra hour of activity that week.
- Try a week long Detox Diet Week 7 Day Weight Loss Cleanse. This one-week detox cleanse that’s just the thing to give your weight loss a boost and help pull you out of a plateau.
I don’t like vegetables, how can I lose weight without eating vegetables?
Vegetables are key in weight loss. I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s true. Luckily on the Lose Weight By Eating site we use hidden veggies to cut calories. This will trick your taste buds and make it easy to eat veggies.
I don’t like water, what should I drink?
If you don’t like the taste of water try some of my metabolism boosting Fruit Infused Water Recipes. They are a great way to enjoy a sweet treat while doing something good for your body. Just be sure to stay away from the squirt bottles and flavor packets. These added flavors that many people add to their water are full of artificial sweeteners that can make you gain weight.
What is the best artificial sweetener?
It can be difficult to navigate the artificial sweetener world but generally I recommend staying away from all artificial sweeteners. Recently, all natural zero calorie sweeteners have become popular. We love Monk fruit sweeteners in baking and coffee. But a note of caution… just because something is zero calories does not make it a “healthy choice”! When you eat sweets (even all natural zero calorie sweets) you crave more carbs and more sweets. So using all natural zero calorie sweeteners should still be used in moderation! Otherwise you could start a downward spiral of cravings that through you off plan inadvertently.
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