That was the title of a seminar I attended while I was on my recent cruise vacation.  Eat More to Weigh Less.  I like the sound of it, so I was curious to see what the speaker had to say (I had a hunch already, but it’s still great to hear a new person’s perspective.)

The speaker was a personal trainer who had quite a bit of nutrition training under his belt too.  Here are a few of the key messages that I got out of it:

1. People these days are eating too little of the right things and too much of the wrong things.

The “wrong things” were explained using the acronym CRAP.  (Sorry if that word offends anyone – I’m just repeating what I heard – it does fit the topic though.)

C – Caffeine

R – Refined Sugar

A – Artificial Sweeteners

P – Preservatives

So, these are the things that many people are having too much of.   This will include all packaged foods, carbonated beverages, desserts, coffee etc.  Essentially, the message here is eat natural foods and watch your caffeine intake!  Natural foods are things that can be pulled out of the ground, plucked off a tree, or were at one time living (if you’re a meat eater.)  I totally agree with this message.  I think eating naturally as much as possible is always a good choice, hence I encourage people to follow a “natural” weight loss plan or diet rather than any other plan.

2. Eat Balanced Meals

The speaker went through the main categories of nutrients that we get from food (i.e. carbs, protein, and fat) and what his opinion was about the best ratio.  He truly believes that 40/30/30 ratio is the best.  This is the ratio that the Zone Diet promotes, if you’ve ever heard of that.  So, 40% of your calories come from carbs and 30% from each of protein and fat.

The Zone Diet is actually a pretty strict way of eating if you follow it correctly.  Whether or not that is really necessary is for each person to decide, but I think it is too hard to follow for the average person.  Not that eating right, losing weight naturally, and being a healthy person should be a breeze, but I think in our modern day, busy lives, we can’t/won’t be able to plan for every meal.  So, we need some flexibility in whatever nutritional regime we are following.

I think it is fine to take something like the Zone Diet as a basis for how you eat, but add some flexibility to it. For example, you don’t need to make every single meal fit the 40/30/30, but just aim to have your full day’s calories split roughly down to that.  And if your typical diet is a little bit off the 40/30/30, don’t stress about it.  I think my diet is more like 50/25/25 and I do okay.  Unless you’re training for a big event or are a professional athlete, you don’t need to follow things so closely – you can still lose weight and be a healthy person.

3. Eat the Right Carbs, Protein, and Fats

Finally, the above nutrients were broken down into “favorable” and “unfavorable” items.  If you eat favorable things within each category, you can eat more at each meal.

Carbs – Favorable items were things with lower GI carbs or complex carbohydrates.  Essentially, these are things that are slower to hit the blood stream, so release energy more slowly to your body.  Unfavorable items were the opposite – so things that give you a quick energy hit (e.g. banana.)  The exception to this is if you are about to do something very physical (gym, football game, physical labor).  In this case, you might want the quick energy from a banana rather than a slow release of energy from something else, maybe an apple.

Protein – Favorable sources of protein were things that walk on two legs or less (chicken, turkey, fish) and plant based protein sources like tofu and lentils.  Unfavorable sources were things that walk on four legs (beef, pork, lamb, etc.)  If you choose an unfavorable source of protein to have with your meal, you should only have a portion the size of the palm of your hand (in diameter and thickness.)  With a favorable source you can have almost double that.

Fats - Favorable fats are plant based, so this includes nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, or other vegetable oils, among other things.  Unfavorable fats are foods high in saturated fat; basically this is man-made fats.  Butter, cheese, and anything with trans fats certainly fall in this category.

Overall, I really enjoyed the seminar and thought there some great bits of wisdom in there.  Even if you already “know” all of these things, it helps to have a reminder and a kick in the butt once in awhile.   You can Eat More to Weigh Less if you’re eating the right things.  Eat natural foods.   Make sure you’re getting carbs, protein and fat in your diet.  Eating right and losing weight doesn’t have to be rocket science, but you’ve got to be sensible and treat your body right.  It will work for you better if you do.

To your health,

Kimberly