Trim Healthy Mama Plan (7 page)

Nuts are predominantly made of protein and fat with just a few carbs, so they fit into the S fuel. Unlike non-starchy veggies, however, they don't need to be used as frequently on the S meal plate. We do want you to enjoy them but we can't give license to go crazy
with nuts since, unlike non-starchy veggies, they are very high in calories. Remember, while we don't count calories we don't abuse them, either, so don't make a meal out of nuts alone! Moderation is a good idea; a handful or two for a snack can be a good S option.

Got a
peanut butter addiction? Don't worry. We're not going to take that good stuff away from you. Natural peanut butter without sugar is fine. Slather some on your celery or put a tablespoon or so in an S smoothie, but don't be like Little Jack Horner sitting in the corner eating it out of the jar by the spoonful! That could be in the abuse category. If you want more peanut flavor without going crazy, try pressed
peanut flour. Our Trim Healthy Mama Pressed Peanut Flour is high in protein and has simply been pressed (to extract a lot of the oil). The result is a nice flour/meal texture that has less fat and fewer calories but heaps of peanutty flavor. It is awesome in smoothies or shakes, baked goods, and savory Thai sauces. Check out the recipe for Peanut Junkie Butter in our “Condiments and Extras” chapter in the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
.

Speaking of
nut flours—welcome to the world of Trim Healthy Baking! Nut flours will enable you to have moist muffins, cookies, and cakes that are kind to your blood sugar—even for breakfast if you want! Who makes all those rules, anyway? If we want frosted chocolate cake for breakfast or a big ol' muffin slathered with buttah—we have it! Trim Healthy Mama baked goods are high in protein, full of superfoods, topped up with chocolaty or cinnamony goodness, and keep us happy. Pressed
coconut flour is another great flour option for baking, but we're most excited about our
Gluten-Free Trim Healthy Mama baking flour blend. It is a combination of various pressed seed flours and other superfood goodies. The result is a wonderful texture and taste for baking. We designed the
THM Baking Blend to have a lighter caloric load so you can add wonderful superfood fats like coconut oil and whole eggs to it and not abuse calories. It's a jack-of-all-trades: pancakes, muffins, cookies, brownies, cakes, biscuits, sandwich breads, and even breading for chicken and fish—it has you covered. But since we have a “no special ingredients required” policy, you can also bake with golden flax meal, which is blessedly inexpensive and easily found at almost all grocery stores.
Almond flour is easy to find in stores, too, but sadly it is not so inexpensive. You can make wonderful muffins and other baked goodies with either or both of those
S-friendly flours. Check out many free Trim Healthy Mama recipes using those two flours on Pinterest or make our tried-and-tested favorites from the
Trim Healthy Mama
Cookbook
.

3.
Berries

These little power-packed gems of goodness are shining stars in the world of
superfoods and thankfully are low enough in sugar that you can include some in both your S and E meals. They're fantastic baked into muffins, topping a salad, mixed into Greek yogurt, topping a healthy cheesecake, or just popped into your mouth.

We could go on and on listing their benefits, but this is supposed to be a short book.
Buy them fresh or frozen. Eat 'em, love 'em—that's the short of it. (Lemons and limes are also welcome in S meals but other fruits are not
S-friendly.)

S-FRIENDLY MEATS

S-FRIENDLY
EGGS

S-FRIENDLY DAIRY

S-FRIENDLY VEGGIES

S-FRIENDLY
FRUIT

S-FRIENDLY
NUTS AND
SEEDS

S-FRIENDLY
CONDIMENTS

S-FRIENDLY GRAINS AND
BEANS

S-FRIENDLY HEALTHY SPECIALTY ITEMS

(Check out
Chapter 18
, “Specialty Food Stars,” in which we give descriptions and benefits of many of the above products and tell you what to look for in other brands or seek locally if you don't want to purchase online.)

S-FRIENDLY “PERSONAL CHOICE” ITEMS

T
here are two common extremes when it comes to carbohydrates: People are addicted to them or they are terrified of them. Yes, carbs are notorious for fattening us up and causing inflammatory blood-sugar spikes, but these are situations in which carbs are distorted or abused. Healthy carbs should never be shunned because of this bad rap. That's like completely avoiding sunshine, closing yourself off in darkness, for
fear of a sunburn. No way to live. Bring on the rays!

E meals will allow you to gain health, vitality, and a fired-up metabolism while eating carbs—delicious, energizing carbs—always safely anchored by protein.

Here's what an E evening meal may look like:

When enjoyed in the amounts we describe, the carbs that star in your E meals won't be Monster Meanies on your blood-sugar levels. You'll get to include fruit, sweet potatoes, beans/legumes of all kinds, and gentle whole grains in your Energizing meals. We describe these grains, such as oatmeal or quinoa, as gentle because they are not bullies to your blood sugar. Brown rice may get a little pushy at times, so if you have any form of
Type 2 diabetes or severe insulin resistance, you can choose quinoa, whole barley, or whole farro over brown rice. Those options are gentler on your blood sugar.

Think again of a seesaw.
E meal ratios show a big difference in heights between carbs and
fats. Note that when carbs are higher in a meal, fats are naturally lower. Protein sits solidly at the balancing point of the seesaw.

We need to take a minute to make this crystal clear because carbs have suffered much persecution. YOU NEED CARBS—THEY ARE SLIMMING—THEY ARE HEALING! We had to yell, only because we have to be a tad cruel to be kind. We know what living in
fear of carbs feels like, and it's no fun. Some of you will need tough love to shake you out of carb terror. Many coming from low-carb diets believe even a few bites of oatmeal or fruit may cause exploding weight gain.

“Watch out, Mama's about to balloon up—she ate an apple!”

This fear is unfounded. Song of Solomon 2:5 (ESV) reads, “Refresh me with apples.” Just as the Bible doesn't gel with fear of fat, it also doesn't jibe with fear of carbs. Yes, there might be a bit of an uptick on the scale after a couple of healthy carb-based meals; but this is only due to your muscle cells taking in the fuel of glucose, and they do so by also pulling in fluid. This is a good and very natural function of your body. The goal when eating carbs the right way is a long-term downward trend on the scale thanks to a revved-up
metabolism. Little upticks noticed from too much scale watching are not the big picture.

You must keep your body guessing if you don't want it to adapt to one type of fuel and lower its thermal burn. Long periods of eating too few carbs take the fire out of your metabolic fuel-burning ability. Carbs are
important for your
thyroid health. Feed your body only low-carb
meals and watch what happens after a while: It will catch on. “Ahhh, I know what you are going to give me…more fats and protein again and again! I am so used to that now, I'm just gonna start storing whatever you feed me.” The thyroid hormone T3, which your body uses for so many bodily functions—including a healthy metabolism—takes a nosedive. Give your body some glucose and watch it start to do the rumba by having to burn another fuel. Shake it up, baby!

Carbs are essential for your happiness as they elevate
serotonin levels in your brain. This is an important neurotransmitter that combats the blahs. It is also a natural pain reliever. A constant low-carb state means your brain won't be releasing as much of this pleasant feeling. On the other hand, ever heard of a sugar high? That is an extremely high serotonin state caused by eating too many carbs. The bliss from the bowl of Moose Tracks ice cream feels good for a little while but inevitably results in a crash. What goes up must come down. The serotonin low makes you feel grumpy, washed out, and in need of some more sugar! Just as we must get the highs and lows of blood sugar under control, our brain chemistry relies on the balance of the fuels we give it, too. Eating the right amount of good carbs can help to balance out the extremes of skyrocketing then plummeting serotonin levels.

“Adrenal fatigue” is a common buzz phrase these days, but it is notorious for causing stubborn weight that won't let go. Take a whole fuel (like carbs) away from your body and it is going to feel pretty stressed. It will have to release the stress hormone
cortisol that is notorious for fattening us up. This is only logical since our Creator designed us to burn two primary fuels. Would you fly a twin-engine plane on only one of its engines? That would be an extremely stressful situation. If we constantly offer our bodies only one kind of fuel, our adrenal glands panic. Healthy carbs (in safe amounts) sing soothing lullabies to your adrenals.

Balance must always reign. The other side of the coin is that our adrenal glands do not thrive in a high-carb state, either. Soaring blood sugar from eating too many carbs requires high levels of
insulin to be released for cleanup. What happens when you have to make lots of insulin? Your body feels stressed and releases more cortisol—boo! Let's avoid these extremes. Let's learn to eat carbs the right way.

It's so important to remember that
E meals are not an excuse to gorge on carbs. Gorging on carbs will result in hazardous blood-sugar levels and weight gain (especially around the belly) whether the carbs are whole-grain or not. Keep the starchy carb portion to a palm-size serving on your plate unless you are eating beans—and you can have more of those.

Keeping grains, fruit, and sweet potatoes to palm-size portions will naturally keep you around or under forty-five grams of net carbs, which is the limit we advise. That amount
gives your body glucose as fuel for energy, but it can still be burned off without too much trouble. This is how the E meal becomes a slimming sensation. Since you are not overstuffing your cells with glucose fuel, your body will have to search for more fuel once it has devoured the easy-burn E carb. The signal is released for your body fat to come out of storage so you can keep going. Jeans get that slightest bit looser!

Fruit is a fantastic E option, but this doesn't mean you should overdo it. One apple, orange, peach, or nectarine with an E meal is wonderful; but going overboard with fruit can provide too much sugar in the body.
Higher-glycemic fruits like mango, pineapple, grapes, and watermelon are best kept to one-cup servings. If you have severe insulin resistance or any pre- or full-blown
Type 2 diabetes, it may be best if you steer away from the higher-glycemic fruits at first (or use only half servings of them) and stick to more medium-glycemic fruits like apples, peaches, and cherries until your blood sugars are better stabilized. Bananas are a high-sugar fruit that are too often overeaten, but it is a myth that they cannot be eaten on THM. We simply suggest sticking with half a large banana (or one small) in an E meal or snack.

We don't want you doing a bunch of carb counting because it leads only to needless obsessions and robs you of the joy in your journey. The suggested portions of starch and fruit in our E list of approved foods are already given in safe helping sizes so you won't need to think too much about it. It's no fun doing math in your head at every meal. Staying close to these safe portion boundaries of glucose fuel will keep you from the dangerous fat-storing troll that waits on the other side of the carb-limit fence. This doesn't mean you'll be hungry or your plate will look woefully meager; your carb fuel is just one part of the yummy whole picture on your plate. Just like with S meals, you'll be adding other Fuel Pull options such as non-starchy veggies and lean meat, dairy, or egg whites.

Let's compare a Trim Healthy Mama E meal to one eaten in dangerous Trollville outside the fenced safety of the limits we advise. Imagine that breakfast we mentioned earlier of a generous bowl of oatmeal with added fruit or berries and a dollop of Greek yogurt. Your blood sugar should still be within safe and healthy limits after a filling thirty- to forty-five-gram carb meal like this. Compare that to a common evening meal that contains a baked potato of around sixty carbs, a white dinner roll (or two) of around twenty-five carbs each, and a sugar-laden dessert around eighty carbs. Put the three together, as many people do, and you have well over a hundred carbs in just one meal. Now that's out of conTROLL! No wonder the epidemic of obesity is still raging.

Fat takes a backseat in an E meal but it is not banished. You can add one little pat—a teaspoon. Okay, we know how much peanut butter we personally have been able to fit on a teaspoon in our lives; there are Guinness World Records to break on that one, right? We mean a
flat
(level) teaspoon. (Check out
Chapter 10
, “Just the Numbers,” if you are a numbers person and think in numbers versus visual amounts.)

This optional teaspoon of fat is added for three reasons:

Is this teaspoon of added fat mandatory? No, especially if your protein source has a lean but still existing amount of fat, as does salmon or lean dairy (such as 1% cottage cheese). Some of the grains that we encourage, like oatmeal and quinoa, also naturally contain their own small amount of fat, so you don't have to concern yourself with always adding more.

But this also doesn't mean that if your protein source or grain does contain a little bit of fat you must deny yourself that teaspoon of oil on your salad or coconut oil to sauté your salmon. You're still likely to be in safe waters adding the small amount we advise. Here's a little practical advice to make your salads more succulent in
E meals: Use an extra-virgin olive oil spritz, which coats every leaf without overdoing it. Adding a sour agent like vinegar or lemon helps to curb the rise of too-high blood sugar. It also brings more succulence to your salad, so if you do decide not to add any fat at all, then double up on the balsamic vinegar or lemon juice.