Who is it for:
Beginners with modest goals with simple basic steps looking to improve overall health.
If your aim is fat loss, you should be looking at habits that will reduce your caloric intake or increase your caloric expenditure by moving more, a combination of both is recommended.
A variety of foods that you enjoy usually works best for accountability and sustainability, aim for 80% whole foods and 20% of what your soul desires.
Try to pick one habit at a time and stick with it for at least 2 months before adding another one, once that first habit became part of your daily routine, then you can add a second habit.
These simple habits can often help you do that without counting calories.
Habits to master:
1- Eat mindfully and make sure to stop at 80% full.
Relax and take your time to enjoy your food and check with hunger frequently.
Make sure to stop eating when you’re about 80% full.
2- Eat protein-dense foods with each meal.
Try to aim for at least 1 palm-size portion of protein with every meal.
3- Vegetables with every meal.
Add vegetables to every meal. 1 fist-size is a portion, you can eat as many portions as you like with each meal.
4-Carbs.
Smaller portions of starchy carbs and larger of vegetables with meals and majority of starchy carbs around workouts/exercise.
Again as many vegetables as you want.
(Be careful with dressings, they do not count as vegetables and are often loaded with extra calories)
5-Eat healthy fats daily.
Prioritize fats from whole sources like eggs, meat, fish, nuts, seeds, and olives.
You can add an Omega fish oil supplement.
Last but not least:
If you reduce your caloric intake is not a bad idea to take a daily multivitamin supplement to make sure your micro-nutrients are covered.
Focus on rewarding habits instead of outcomes, some of these habits take a bit of time to kick in. See, “I need to lose 10 pounds” is an outcome, “I need to exercise five times per week” is a behavior; followed this week’s habits 90% of the time and didn’t miss any workouts? That’s worthy of a reward regardless of the outcome because it’s this pattern of behavior that will eventually lead to success.
If instead of working with habits you’d rather count calories, I’ll put all that together in the next section, how to figure out your caloric balance, how to increase or decrease depending on your goals, etc.
Even if you reduce your caloric intake and you are achieving results from eating habits alone, it’s always a good idea to add movement, any kind of movement counts, even fidgeting adds up to your calorie expenditure and moving has lots of benefits for overall health.
If you are ready to count calories, go here:
Forward reading and identifying levels:
http://www.precisionnutrition.com/whats-your-nutritional-level
https://www.choosemyplate.gov