Chris Powell's Choose More, Lose More for Life (35 page)

We
love
convenience. When it comes to food preparation, we want it
fast, easy, and fun!
Our recipes are definitely not complicated, confusing, or time-consuming. They use familiar ingredients that you can find in your local supermarket, and we definitely don’t expect you to know any fancy culinary techniques or own any expensive kitchen equipment. If you’re not big on cooking, or you just don’t have much time to spare, rest assured that our recipes will get you in and out of your kitchen in a flash.

Whether you’re a novice in the kitchen or a pro, you’re about to learn how to use food to take control of your body and your weight loss. We’ll show you how to put together a dish or a meal using healthy ingredients, figure out your right portion sizes, and, just as important, add zest to your food with delicious techniques. This simple info is all you’re going to need to whip up effective, enjoyable meals that help you achieve your goals!

We do recipes a little bit differently around here, so you won’t just get a list of ingredients, a set of directions, and a “good luck.” This chapter’s packed with tips and how-to’s on food storage, portioning, advance preparation,
bulk preparation, food substitutions, and the like. We lay out our food categories—proteins, carbohydrates, veggies, and fats—in easy-to-read charts, so you’ll quickly get the big picture on nutrition. And we follow a simple model for all the recipes: Each is based on a protein foundation and includes a high- and low-carb variation.

If you want to take carb-cycle cooking up to the next level (but you don’t have to!), you’re going to love this! That’s because you’re getting the building blocks of
meal creation
, a process that goes beyond making a tasty breakfast burrito. I’m going to clue you in on how to tailor your meals to
your own tastes
and requirements. Once you learn the tricks of combining ingredients, adapting recipes, and cooking quick meals that keep your mouth and your metabolism happy, you’ll be on your way to success!

All of our recipes are wonderfully
customizable and interchangeable
, so you’ve got endless possibilities for designing your very own carb-cycling dishes and menus. The recipes note the category of each ingredient, so you’ll be able to analyze your favorite recipes and adapt them while making sure your tweaks follow the carb-cycling rules. Choose a different protein for a recipe, change a side to turn your high-carb meal into a low-carb meal, invent your own dishes with smart foods and techniques—before you know it, you’ll be a virtuoso at mixing and matching ingredients for maximum flavor and benefit any day of the week!

“Yikes!” you say? “All I want are easy recipes for good, healthy food that’ll help me lose weight!” Don’t worry. I guarantee you’ll get carb cycling right just by following our simple food prep instructions, step by step. But eating won’t be boring! Even if you stick with the most basic of the basics, you’re going to enjoy these meals!

I can hear it now: “But Chris, all this healthy food’s going to be expensive!” You ready for my comeback? Some of the
cheapest
foods per serving are the fruits, eggs, grains, and veggies that I want you to eat! In fact, Heidi and I each eat for $6 to $12 a day… really! Eating processed, fast, and junk food has actually been costing you more than the real, whole
food you’ll be eating on your carb cycle. Not to mention the long-term impact on your health. Think of the doctor’s bills you won’t have to pay.

So many healthy foods have really reasonable prices, but you can
save even more
by clipping coupons and keeping an eye out for sales at your supermarket. Don’t forget store brands, either. A lot of the food that’s sold under supermarket labels comes from the exact same producers as the brand-name stuff does!

Sure, some healthy foods can be expensive, especially protein. Don’t panic if one of our recipes calls for a meat or fish that isn’t in your budget. You can always use a less expensive, nutritionally comparable variety. For example, some cuts of steak can be pretty pricey, but you can
save about a third off
, more or less, by choosing less swanky cuts (e.g., eye round, flatiron, or some types of sirloin). And it just so happens that some of the less expensive cuts are a lot tastier and a lot leaner! It’s the same story with fish: Pound for pound, large shrimp cost more than small shrimp, salmon’s cheaper than tuna, etc. Make budget-friendly protein choices; buy a little extra of whatever’s on sale and freeze it to use later.

There’s been a greenmarket boom in the United States over the past ten years or so, but maybe you’ve always figured shopping at one of them would be costly. Believe it or not, most veggies and fruits sold at farmers’ markets are less expensive than they are in the supermarket! And if you’re into organic food, greenmarket prices are
a lot
lower. Plus, the food you get from the local farms that sell this way is much fresher—therefore, richer in nutrients—than supermarket produce. There’s bound to be a weekly farmers’ market near you.

Some herbs and spices are very expensive, mostly because of packaging. You can save significantly at Mexican, Asian, and other international grocery stores, or in the ethnic section at your supermarket, where herbs and spices often come in plain cellophane bags. Many large supermarket chains now sell herbs and spices under the supermarket’s own label, without the brand-name extras (which you don’t need). Another great source for these flavorings can be your local health food store, which might carry herbs and spices in bulk, with no packaging at all.

These stores also sell healthy grains, like brown rice and rolled oats, plus many varieties of granola, in bulk. Whether for grains or spices, there
are two big advantages to shopping at health food stores: First, many of their products are minimally processed and grown without pesticides; and second, you can buy exactly as much as you want instead of the amount preloaded into commercial packaging.

For weight loss, not only is it essential to eat the right foods, it’s essential that you eat the
right amount
of food. It boils down to calories. Uggh. Calculating calories is no fun, and it’s easy to get it wrong, but you need to watch ’em: They measure how much fuel you’re putting into your body. Even a little bit of extra fuel can quickly accumulate in your body, so it’s important to make sure portions are right
for you
.

There are all sorts of new smartphone apps that count calories, and some of them are amazing! But here’s the catch. You have to
use
them for them to work. Let’s get real: Most of us need something simpler. You could buy a calorie-counting app for your phone, but there’s a much more convenient way—a low-tech way—to guesstimate portions: Use your hands! That’s right. Hand portioning is smart, easy to remember and easy to use wherever you go.

Many diets ask you to weigh all of your food. If you can actually make it part of your lifestyle, more power to you—you’ll get great results! But who’s got the time or patience to put it all on a scale? Good news: Hand
portioning makes weight loss and maintenance
way easier
today and for the rest of your life. This explains why most of our recipes don’t measure quantities in terms of ounces or pounds.

But FYI, here’s how hand portioning equates to cooking measurements:

Although hand portioning is fast and easy, it’s not absolutely precise. Each time you measure a thumb-size portion of peanut butter, it’s going to be slightly different from the portion you measured last time. Plus, the portion conversion chart above is based on the
average
hand sizes of men and women, which are probably different from the size of your hands. Some women have bigger hands than others, and the same goes for men! So you might need to adjust your hand portions.