3 Simple, Healthy Meal Plans You Can Start Right Now

Is it possible to put together a simple and healthy meal plan? One that is not going to be complicated and hard to follow? Yes. It is possible and I will show you how. The healthy meal plans below will help you achieve your health goals while simultaneously shedding fat off your body.

Here are 3 healthy meal plans you can get started on right now.

Breakfast

Protein should be included in every meal throughout the day and breakfast is no exception. Make sure to include organic eggs, cottage cheese, raw nut butter or smoked fish as one component of your healthy breakfast. Carbohydrates should also be included in the form of oatmeal, sprouted grain bread, fruit and/or vegetables.

3 great sample breakfasts are:

Oatmeal with almond butter, topped with fresh berries and a bit of Stevia to sweeten.

2 hard boiled eggs, 1 slice sprouted grain toast and ½ grapefruit

Smoked salmon over sliced tomato and 1 green apple

Lunch

The same rules apply as breakfast. An easy way to ensure that you always have a healthy protein available for lunch is to pack leftovers from dinner the night before. Leftover hamburger, chicken legs or wild fish are all great to include in a salad or over vegetables.

3 great sample lunches are:

Baked Tilapia (or other fish) over sautéed spinach, green salad with chick peas (oil and vinegar as dressing) followed by ½ cup of pineapple.

Leftover chicken legs with ½ sweet potato and broccoli.

Lean hamburger over portabella mushroom and brown rice. Cooked vegetables or a green salad. 1 orange.

Dinner

You can really be creative with dinner. Look for recipes that are quick and easy and modify them with your own healthy ingredients as needed. Again, always remember to include protein and carbohydrates.

3 great sample dinners are:

Mexican salad: Ground beef over shredded lettuce and tomato, guacamole and brown rice.

Grilled Salmon over asparagus, green salad (oil and vinegar as dressing) followed by a fresh fruit salad.

Buffalo meat balls over rice pasta with sautéed broccoli.

Snacks

You never want to let your body get too hungry. Hunger often leads to binge eating of unhealthy food and makes sticking to a healthy eating regimen much more difficult. It’s important to keep snacks handy so you never experience hunger or a blood sugar low without having a healthy option nearby.

3 great snacks are:

2 Tbsp almond butter on ½ apple

Trail mix made up of walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds and dried fruit (no sugar added)

Cottage cheese and pineapple

Incorporate just a few of these meals into your daily eating regimen and you will see an incredible difference in your weight loss results. Following simple and healthy meal plans like these is the first step in achieving your health and fitness goals.

To get started right away on your own fat loss goals , download these Simple and Healthy Meal Plans right now.

Summer heat... what foods should I eat?

Surprisingly, summer heat causes more deaths from heat stroke in the U.S. than twisters, blizzards or floods.

Less surprisingly, what you eat and drink can help you cope more easily with the heat of summer.

It is essential to keep your fluid intake up during the summer heat. Water especially, is your friend, and it is easy to keep a supply of water in the fridge.

Foods with a high water content are ideal foods for summer. Reduce your consumption of protein (protein is hard to digest and the effort required for the process creates heat)  and increase your consumption of fruit and vegetables.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are the perfect summer food so as much as possible, increase the quantity of these in your diet. As a bonus, fruits and vegetables also supply your body with the nutrients it needs to help protect your body from the effects of the sun. Antioxidants help prevent and repair cells in the body. Vitamins and minerals can help protect you from skin cancer and wrinkles.

So which fruits and vegetables are ideal for those long hot summer days, and why?

Cucumbers and melons are ideal water-rich options. 

 A low calorie sweet treat, a large chunk of cold, thirst-quenching watermelon has to be the most perfect summer food. It is high in Vitamin C and Vitamin A, potassium and magnesium, nutrients that are invaluable in summer. Vitamin C helps the body physiologically during the heat of summer by improving the body’s response to heat stress. You are less likely to feel exhausted by the heat because the Vitamin C lowers your body temperature and helps shorten the length of time it takes for your body to adjust or acclimatize to the heat. Vitamin C has antioxidant benefits which are thought to help the body protect itself from cell damage by increasing the production of collagen, the growth of new tissue and repair of damaged cells. Vitamin C helps reduce the incidence of summer allergies, possibly by preventing the body from producing histamine.

Fruits that are particularly high in Vitamin C and also have sufficient Vitamin E and A to meet your summer requirements include black currents, guava, kiwi, mango, mulberries and papaya. Vegetables include butternut squash and swiss chard.

But most fruits contain Vitamin A, as do eggs and dairy. Additional foods high in Vitamin C are: grapefruit, lychee, orange, passionfruit, pineapple and strawberries, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts and kale.

Vitamin A helps your body repair skin that has been damaged by exposure to the sun’s rays. Vitamin A is in most fruits, as well as eggs and dairy. Vitamin E also has antioxidant effects and can help reduce the severity of summer allergies and asthma by calming the immune system and the allergic response.

Green leafy vegetables provide the nutrients required for thermoregulation, the process of the body regulating its internal temperature. Calcium is the most important mineral for regulating body temperature.

Cranberries, pears, apples, pomegranates, grapes, quince, persimmons, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and root vegetables are excellent summer foods due to their astringent properties. Astringent foods increase water absorption in the body. Other astringent foods are legumes, tea and coffee, and some herbs and spices (thistle, chamomile, jasmine).

Are you setting your child up for an unhealthy life?

How much TV does your child watch?  How much time do you spend in front of the TV? Surprisingly, the levels of activity you had as a child has more impact on your level of fitness and incidence of obesity than what you do as an adult.

If, as a child you spent a lot of time in front of the television then the effects can still be there as an adult in your 30s. Those people in their 30s who have poor fitness levels or are obese are less likely to have been active as a child.

Humans evolved to be physically active. The muscles and ligaments develop and become strong in childhood from strenuous activity.  They remain that way in adult life by being used.  Those muscles and ligaments don’t even have a chance to fully develop in our children if they spend hours in front of screens of one type or another. In addition, we set habits early in life that can be hard to break.

Very young children naturally want to run and jump and play. If, as they grow, these children continue to see physical activity as fun and spend their childhood engaged in exploring, games, sport, running for the sheer pleasure of it and playing in the playground, they are more likely to grow up as healthy active adults. Engaging in these activities with others is also hugely important for children's social development. The lessons we know as adults were often leaned in the playground as children.