It is a common myth that you need to starve yourself to lose your baby weight. And this as most people know is a very unpleasant part of any weight loss journey.
However, one of the best ways to lose weight is to eat little and often so your metabolism stays constantly fired up and so your body is constantly burning energy. The rate at which our individual body burns energy is called our BMR (or Basic Metabolic Rate). This means how many calories or energy our body would use if we were to do nothing and just lay in bed all day.
For an average women her BMR will be somewhere between the 1500 – 1900 calorie mark so when you have worked out what yours is (go to www.losebabyweight.com.au/weight-loss/basal-metabolic-rate/ to work out your BMR), it is a lot easier to see what calories you need to consume in order to lose weight. So the aim in weight loss is to have your body burning more calories during the day and you can obviously do this by exercise which we at Lose Baby Weight advise you do as part of your plan, but an easy way to also do it is by eating the right food and eating little and often so your body has to work hard to digest the foods and process them.
This obviously doesn’t work if you eat processed, unhealthy and high sugar/fat foods but if you in take the correct nutrition and eat lean, high protein, complex carbohydrates and fat burning foods (like garlic, chilli, ginger) and eat 6 times a day then you will be giving your body a work out just by eating! The key is also to have optimal digestion so your body can function properly so fibre is essential to assist in weight loss.
So what are some great healthy snacks we can all eat during the day? We recently ran a promotion on www.losebabyweight.com.au for mums to send in their best healthy snacks – and below are some of our favourites – ENJOY!!
- Small serving of natural yoghurt, with linseed’s, and a pinch of cinnamon.2 wholegrain crisp breads spread with mashed avocado and a squeeze of lemon juice.
- 2 multi grain crispbreads topped with salmon, cottage cheese, and herbs.1 rice cake topped with a hard-boiled egg and mixed herbs
- Mini Waldorf Salad – Lettuce leaf, sliced apple, sliced celery, cucumber and a couple of walnuts… drizzle of natural yoghurt OR maple syrup
- A smoothie made with lots of ice,our smoothie mix, mixed frozen berries, a frozen banana, skimmed milk – all blended in a blender
- Zuccini slice, i make a big one up with lots vegies, slice it and freeze the rest and just pull out a piece each day or when I feel like it
- Mountain Bread Chips with Salsa Dip. I make chips from Mountain Bread by cutting them into squares (chip size), placing them on trays in the oven and baking them at 180degrees for 5 mins – just until they go crunchy! Then eat them with salsa.
- Cup of twinnings afternoon tea blend and a sliced golden delicious apple with lemon juice drizzled on
- Get the Nestle Diet Mousse’s and a handful of frozen berries from in the freezer. Defrost the berries in the microwave – mix them through the mousse and it is a delightful decadent dessert!!
- Carrot sticks with hummous – or the mini cucumbers that you can buy at this time of year with either hummous or salsa
- Brushetta and made with chopped up fresh tomatoes (I prefer cherry ones) with finely chopped red onion combined with 1 tsp of basil pesto, some crushed garlic and a heap of good quality balsamic vinegar. Mix it all together and eat with some toast(I like multi-grain, preferably Rye Multi-grain). I have a big container of the tomato, onion and vinegar mixture in the fridge so I can grab this when ever for lunch or a smaller portion for a snack.
- Grated green apple with grated raw beetroot
- Homemade oat slice with dried apricots, dates, sultanas & coconut.
- Vegie & fruit snacks pre-cut waiting and ready in the fridge. I find if the items aren’t chopped up I reach for prepackaged items or lollies