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Eating More and Weighing Less

By on April 16, 2019
health

By Vicky Ward

I started getting anxiety around food my sophomore year at college. The so-called ‘freshman 15’ was not kind to me, and it was more like 20 or 25. We’ve all been there at some point, and most of us are no strangers to dieting. My biggest peeve with diets? The food usually sucks, and I feel hungry all the time. I don’t know about you, but those alone are enough to make me quit after a couple weeks.

So, I doubled down on cardio to try and outrun my high calorie diet and sedentary lifestyle. But, with classes, work, friends, clubs, and just needing a break, exercising lost its place and I went to the gym less and less (while eating more and more). But, in a stroke of luck, I went to the Farmer’s market with a few of my friends one weekend and bought massive amounts of veggies (over 10 pounds)—and the weight started falling off.

I spent the whole week cooking all these vegetables, and noticed that, by the end of the week I had lost about five pounds. That’s when the realization hit me: all those vegetables I’d been eating were really low calorie, and even though I felt full all the time, it was mostly water. That’s around the time I started consistently eating more vegetables, and what happened over the next couple months changed everything.

My sleep was better, skin was clearer, stress was lower, weight was going down, and best of all—I felt healthy. My blood pressure had even gone down! Honestly, I wasn’t a huge consumer of vegetables before this, and if I had them, they’d be at the end of my meal. I always thought they were pretty boring before I went to the Farmer’s market. I didn’t realize there were so many different vegetables, and it made trying them much more interesting.

The three best foods I’ve found by just exploring the Farmer’s market every weekend are beets, hemp seeds, and purple potatoes. Prior to going, I’d never eaten these before, and now I have them on a daily basis. Beets lower your blood pressure immediately after eating—a lot. My blood pressure usually hovered around 140/80 and within half an hour of eating beets it’d be 120/65. Hemp seeds are one of the few vegetarian whole proteins, alongside quinoa, and include omega-3 and omega-6 fats, with lots of fiber. Purple potatoes honestly just look super cool and everyone knows potatoes are good for you!

In case dieting is as overwhelming for you as it was for me, here’s a great sample diet that can be tweaked to fit you needs—without counting any calories.

Breakfast

  • Eggs
  • Porridge
  • Citrus fruit
  • Dark chocolate

Lunch

  • Milk
  • Potato
  • Berries
  • Vegetables
  • Hemp seeds

Dinner

  • Potato
  • Yogurt
  • Salmon
  • Vegetables
  • Dark chocolate

Now, it looks like a lot, but remember that you choose the quantity. So, breakfast could be one egg, a small bowl of oatmeal, an orange, and one dark chocolate square. It’s simple, easy to prepare, and super healthy—exactly like it should be!

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imageVicky Ward is a neuropsychologist with a deep interest in holistic health, nutrition, and fitness. Her hobbies include jogging, yoga, and cooking. When she’s not working, she can be found reading Christian fiction or napping.

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