Balance Your Plate & Never Count A Calorie Again

In my time as a bikini fitness athlete I learnt some tricks and tips about dieting (not all healthy). One of the best things I learnt though was how to correctly balance the food on your plate so that your body would get the nutrition it needed and start to GLOW UP from the inside out.

Focusing on nutrition nearly always results in weight loss because the things that are the most nutrient dense, tend to be the healthiest things for us with low-calorie density. Who would have thought hey!

OVERALL TIPS:

1.) Think of all food in terms of proteins, carbs and fats

2.) Our objective with each meal is to get the correct balance of these things depending on our dietary objectives

3.) They are not all equal - proteins, carbs and fats all have a different density of calories and so we don't allocate the plate to them equally but we want to get some of each into each meal

4.) We want to be looking for lean sources of protein carbs and fats e.g. lean source of protein is chicken breast, non-lean source of protein that we want to avoid would be pork or lamb.

5.) A really good rule of thumb for weight loss is to start by allocating half of every plate to fruit and vegetables. This is because they are packed with nutrients, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that help us glow up.

6.) The rest of the plate we split a quarter for protein, and a quarter for carbs and a teaspoon-tablespoon of fats depending on the meal size. This is a really generalised approach but works for almost everyone starting out on a healthy eating plan.

EXAMPLES OF BALANCED PLATES

Breakfast: Protein powder (protein) mixed with oats with dark berries (carbs and vitamins) and a small amount of peanut butter (fats)

Lunch: Half plate of Greek salad (vitamins), quarter plate grilled chicken breast (protein), quarter plate sweet potato (cabs) made with a tablespoon of olive oil (fats)

Dinner: Half the plate cooked vegetables (vitamins) made with a tablespoon of coconut oil (fats), lean mince beef in steak seasoning (protein), and quarter plate jasmine rice (carbs)

THE SECRET: Half of each plate each time is being allocated to the thing that has the least calories but the highest density of nutrients & the highest volume (so it fills you up). It also stops you filling up on the things with high calorie density and low nutrition.

If you eat like this there is no need to cut out food groups and no need to count calories. You can eye ball each plate and ask yourself is half the bowl fruit and vegetables? Is quarter carbs and quarter protein? Did I get some fats in there?

If you try this let me know how you get on :-)

Nicky