The Picky Eater’s Guide to Eating Healthy

Not into grilled salmon? Can’t make yourself swallow kale, no matter how healthy everyone says it is? The good news is you don’t have to. On Nutrisystem, creating menus suited to your palate is simple: Pick and choose your favorite breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack options, choosing from over 150 foods; use filters on the menu page to sort out vegetarian dishes, for example, or low sodium foods; or call a Nutrisystem dietary counselor for help in building your best eating plan. (Not on Nutrisystem yet? What are you waiting for?! Click here to get started >).

And when you’re cooking your own meals at home, making small changes to meals you love or trying different ways to prep healthy foods can up the nutrition in your diet without torturing your taste buds.

Here are five tips to help a picky eater eat healthy:

1. Drink your veggies.

You don’t love spinach, but you do love fruit. So combine the two into one delicious smoothie: Strawberries, banana, ice, fat-free milk and yes, spinach, into a blender and voila—you get all the vitamins and minerals of the fresh veggie right through your straw. Frozen vegetables work just as well: Frozen cauliflower, for example, adds a big dose of vitamin C to your favorite fruit smoothie without messing with the flavor. Check out the Shakes & Smoothies section in our Recipes Center for more creative ways to sneak veggies into your smoothies.

11 Tasty Smoothies You Can Make With Your Nutrisystem Shakes

Read More

2. Swap meat out of burgers.

Not all of it, of course, but replacing about half the ground meat with chopped and sautéed mushrooms helps cut saturated fat and adds a delicious, savory taste. Or if you’re in a meatloaf mood, mix broccoli slaw into the meat for added texture and nutrients. Not keen on cooking? No problem! Check out these 15 Nutrisystem Meals for Meat-Lovers. Just heat and eat!
Check out more healthy hacks for meat lovers here >

3. Sneak in healthy grains.

Even if a side of quinoa doesn’t seem so appealing, it’s worth finding ways to get this high-protein whole grain into your diet. Quinoa is actually a complete protein (meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids your body needs); plus it cooks quickly and can be used lots of different way. Make stuffed peppers with quinoa, use it as the base of any grain bowl (like this one: Quinoa Carrot Breakfast Bowl) or try baked chicken coated in quinoa instead of bread crumbs like we do in this recipe for Quinoa-Crusted Chicken. More grains to try: High-fiber barley in place of rice in your stir fry or casserole, or bulgur, which you can combine with beans to make a great meat-free burger patty.

6 Super-Grains You Should Be Eating

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4. Improve your pasta dish.

And there are so many ways to do it—the most basic of which is to switch white pasta out for wheat. Or toss in vegetables and lean proteins for a more nutritionally complete meal. You can also forego standard pasta altogether and try spiralizing zucchini, squash or even broccoli stems as the “spaghetti” you pair with your favorite sauce. And if you can’t have pasta without meatballs, make them healthier by using grated zucchini instead of breadcrumbs in your meat mix. Too busy for all that cooking? We’ve got you covered with these 10 Easy Pastas from Nutrisystem. They are a great way to have your carbs… and lose weight, too!

5. Experiment with prep.

You won’t eat plain and grilled fish, but how about coating that salmon with crunchy pistachios for a more satisfying bite? Or you could try making your own version of fish sticks: Slice salmon, cod or halibut into strips, dip in egg whites and whole wheat panko and bake. Love Mexican food? Try one of these healthy recipes. Hate raw kale? Wilt it into your favorite soup or bake it into chips. Roasting broccoli and cauliflower offers a more robust flavor than steaming, and if plain baked potatoes bore you, try oven-baked sweet potato fries. It’s all about trying different dishes until you find a healthy one you’ll eat over and over again.

The post The Picky Eater’s Guide to Eating Healthy appeared first on The Leaf.

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How to Cook Spaghetti Squash

Looking to cut carbohydrates but still have the terrific sensation of eating spaghetti? Say hello to spaghetti squash. In this video in our series of #VeggieSexy video recipes, Nutrisystem dietitian Mandi Knowles demonstrates how to prepare the succulent squash, and even shows which Nutrisystem entree it pairs best with. Bon appetit!

Transcript

Mandi Knowles: If you’re looking to cut carbs, spaghetti squash is a great way. It has the look and feel of real spaghetti. We’re going to show you how to prepare it.

So the first thing you’re going to do is just cut the spaghetti squash in half. [Cutting sounds] And secondly what you’ll want to do is to scoop out the seeds. [Scooping sound] And this might remind you of cutting a pumpkin during Halloween. Just scoop it into the bowl.

So after you get the seeds out you’re just going to remove over to a cookie sheet, spray it with a little cooking spray [spray sound], and sprinkle it with fresh cracked pepper and a little bit of salt, and roast in the oven at 350° for about 45 minutes.

So we’ve taken the squash out of the oven, and you’re looking for it to be a little soft to the touch, and all you’re going to do is take a fork, run it along the sides of the squash and really just pull down and you’ll get these nice strands of what looks like spaghetti, and it’s that easy.

So it’s kind of like magic. You wind up with this vegetable that looks like spaghetti, so we’ve decided to pair it with our chicken parmesan, which already comes with spaghetti, but look how much more you get, and you’re getting your vegetable servings.

To make the chicken parm all you do is take it out of the box, cut two one-inch slits into the top, microwave on high for three minutes, remove the film and stir. Put it back in the microwave for another one-and-a-half to two minutes. Let it sit in the microwave for one minute when it’s done.

Share your Veggiesexy Nutrisystem recipes with us on Facebook or Twitter. For Nutrisystem, I’m Mandi Knowles.

[End of Audio]

The post How to Cook Spaghetti Squash appeared first on The Leaf.

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I've just started my weight loss journey and all I can think about is food... What can help?

TLDR: Even though I'm full or not hungry, all I want to do is munch. I can practically taste different food in my mouth and all I can think about is food. How do I stop myself from going crazy?

​

I'm 24, 5'4 and got up to 100kg in July last year. Hitting triple figures freaked me out, and made me realise I had to get serious about losing weight and getting healthy. I tried keto for a month and a half, and I lost around 5kg, which I kept off. But all I could think about was the food I couldn't eat. My weight loss plateaued at 5kg for 2-3 weeks and I couldn't resist the food that I wsn't supposed to eat so I abandoned the diet.

Lost my enthusiasm for weight loss, but then started again in October, and joined the gym, hoping excercise would help. I was mostly swimming about 20 mins a week. However, I wasn't losing any weight, and my interest dropped and I stopped going.

Then in December, I went on holiday for a month, mostly to attend a wedding. I was walking around a lot on my holiday and this led me to lose another 3 kilos. Coming back in January, I was 92kg and maintained that until about a week ago - when I decided once again to get serious about losing weight.

This time I'm trying to go for a balanced diet and regular excercise. I thought CICO might help. I've also significantly lowered the amount of sugar I take in. I barely eat any chocolate or cake or cookies, etc. I tried going cold turkey, but keep falling off the wagon about every 3 days. Sugar is my kryptonite.

I'm trying to limit my calories in, and trying to eat healthier, and not as much junk food. I'm 8 days in and already down to 88.8 kg which is great. But all I can think about is food. I dream about food, I day dream and fantasize. I can practically taste the food on my tounge. Even a salad sounds delicious, as long as it means I get to constantly eat. I can't stop. I know I'm not hungry. I know I'm full. But all I want to do is constantly munch. I've tried chewing gum instead, which helps in the short term, but I found that I end up fealing hungrier later, and eat bigger portions. I'm not like this, when I'm not trying to lose weight. In fact, I often found myself not eating the entire day when I didn't think about losing weight. However, sugary foods were constant throughout the day.

Is it sugar cravings now? But why does any food seem so delicious when I think about it? And even if my food isn't tasty, or more that I need to eat, why do I constantly still want to eat. How do I stop thinking about food? HOW DO I STOP??? I'll go mad!

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I'm learning how to step into others' shoes...

So, yesterday I grabbed a coffee with a friend of mine. When we got to choose what to have, she asked me if I wanted a piece of cake to share. I refused apologizing and saying that I was trying to lose weight, and she told me that she was trying that too, but today just felt like to cheat.

At that point, I automatically, I swear to you, automatically told her "Oh c'mon, you don't need to lose weight!", without even thinking about it. And she replied "You don't need it either!".

Now, I'm not obese, but I clearly need to lose some weight, and it's crystal clear to everyone who knows me since more than a year, which she happens to. There's no point in denying it, I put on something like 10 kg since my best physical form, it shows a lot and trying to lose that weight is the best thing I can do for myself, this is not fat shaming. She, on the other end, is definitely not overweight, and actually a very attractive girl, or at least I do like her a lot.

But.

We said each other the same exact thing. Automatically, I'm pretty sure that's true for her as well.

Why?

Now that I think about it, I said it because as soon as she mentioned her weight loss, I felt uncomfortable and my mind, subconsciously, was like: "Okay, now what. I don't want her to think that I think she's fat!". Just that. Simply, I didn't want to hurt her feelings, in a way or another, and I'm sure that I would automatically reply the same to everyone mentioning their weight loss to me, just automatically, without really thinking about it.

Now, it did bother me when she told me I didn't need to lose weight. I felt like my effort wasn't being appreciated, and I read about the same feeling a lot in this sub. But now wait, what if she felt the same? Thinking about it, statistically, it is very very much likely that she was feeling the same. And, hey, it's her weight loss! I'm sure she's at a healthy weight, but she's clearly not starving herself nor too thin, so what do I care if she wants to lose weight? It's her choice, as well as it's mine for my weight loss, period.

But I didn't want to make her feel this way, I actually wanted the opposite! And I'm sure she did as well, too. So, I leave you with two points:

​

• Maybe, most of the time that we feel uncomfortable about other people reactions/comments about our weight loss, it's just them trying to be nice, and we may make other people feel the same, involuntarily.
• That being said, how to go past this? What could be the best way to talk about each other's weight losses, without making anyone feel either fat- or skinny- shamed?

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Monday, 17 February 2020? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

• Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
• Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
• FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

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What unconventional reason made you decide to finally lose the weight?

Mine was that I started snoring. Badly. I had never ever snored in my life but after gaining almost 60 pounds I snore like a freight train. I was horrified when my boyfriend showed me a video he took of me snoring so loud it sounded like an earth quake (he didn’t do this to be mean, btw). I was so disgusted with myself!! I would physically feel the extra fat around my neck/double chin literally pressing on my windpipe when I was laying down in bed. So I finally decided enough was enough and started taking my weight loss seriously.

I’ve just started but it feels so fantastic to finally take a step in the right direction. What was your weird reason that finally made it click for you?

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Seeing major results and it’s addicting

I started my weight loss journey back in mid December. Figured I would get a head start on the whole New Years resolutions things. I’m male, 6’1’’, and at my starting point I was 245 lbs.

I started just by going on really long walks. In the morning I would try and get out and just briskly walk 5-6 miles. After New Years, I signed up at Planet Fitness. Their monthly fee is really cheap and it’s right by where I work. I usually go right after work or even sometimes on my lunch breaks. It helps because I bring clothes and go before I get home and sit on my couch and lose motivation.

I started running on the treadmill at first. I used to run cross country in high school and I really wanted to get back to loving running. I started to do too much too fast though and hurt my knee. For about two weeks I couldn’t run and even walking around in daily life hurt my knee.

So many times before I’ve tried to set myself to work out and get in better shape and I lost motivation after a few days. This knee thing seemed like the exact thing that would knock me back to being lazy and putting on some more pounds before starting this process all over again. But I was determined to stick with it this time. I started cycling at the gym because it was the only thing that didn’t hurt my knee. Plus I was hoping that strengthening my quads would help recovery on my knee and help with knee pain in the future when I got back to running.

After about two weeks of not running, my knee felt good enough to start running again. I started just to go every other day to make sure my knee would be okay. Last week I started lifting weights along with doing my cardio workouts. Just a full body workout 3 times a week since I’ve never really done weights before. I run to work now and I’m just starting to run every day a few days ago. My wife signed up for my gym as well and goes with me often when our schedules line up. She also picks me up from work when I run there because it’s too cold at night. She’s been super supportive during this whole process. I do a lot of the cooking in our house and sometimes she might not love the healthier meals that I’m making but she knows how important this is to me and is always my number one supporter. She’s one of the biggest reasons why I’m bettering myself and it means so much to have someone cheering for me.

With all of this exercise, I also track all of my caloric intake in an app called Lose It. I don’t follow a specific diet of any kind. I simply make sure to run a caloric deficit every day. Being conscious of what you eat will take out a lot of foods from your diet though. Sodas, snacking, red meats, etc. All of these will have too many calories to try and fit into a caloric deficit diet so naturally I don’t eat them as much.

Now writing this two months later, I’m 219 lbs. I’m down 26 lbs. And I’m at a point in my progress where I can really see the loss in my body when I look in the mirror. It’s addicting to see your body start to turn in to something that you want to see and that you are proud of. I’m still quite a ways off from where I want to be but I’m excited every day to go the gym and push myself to be better.

No matter where you are in your weight loss journey, whether you are seeing results or still feel like you’re working hard for not much progress, you can do this. Keep fighting for who you want to be. Take the steps you need to get motivated. Find whatever it is that makes you addicted to the grind!

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