Trim Healthy Mama Plan (6 page)

What are Fuel Pull foods? We'll get into a lot more detail later but basically, all the non-starchy veggies you want, berries, and certain lean forms of meats and dairy (if you do not have an allergy to dairy). Hold on, are you envisioning having to stuff dry salad and brittle broccoli into your mouth? Think again! Broccoli is a whole different animal when it is tossed with S fuels of melted butter, a little grated cheese, and a sprinkle of high-mineral salt (see
this page
) and black pepper. You won't feel forced to eat your salad greens when they're drizzled with generous, anti-inflammatory olive oil or creamy dressing and topped with lots of other yummy fixings like bacon bits or nuts. No Spartan rabbit food for us Trim Healthy Mamas! We'll wager that you'll eat more veggies than you ever have but you'll delight in every bite!

Baby Step 3: Fill up the rest of your plate with Fuel Pulls—they match, they don't clash!

Guess what? You just learned the basic principles behind the weight-loss part of this plan. And you're not even completely overwhelmed, right? Well, if you are a teensy bit frazzled finding yourself frantically thinking thoughts like, “S stands for what now?!” breathe deep. This info will settle in; give it some time. Listen to the kind voice inside your head that says “you can do this.” Ignore the meanie voice that says “this is too hard,” or “what's the use.” You've tried and failed too many times before. Ain't nobody got time for that voice—ditch it!

But not all of us need to lose pounds. And even if you do, once you've lost your extra weight, you don't go back to the same old ways that led to the health and weight issues you so desperately wanted to overcome. The actual weight-loss stage will be the shortest part of your Trim Healthy journey. Even if you have lots to lose—even if it takes you five years—yes, it will still be the shortest part of your journey. Open your mind to the long-term vision of this plan, which is the art of
lifelong healthy eating. Maintaining a healthy weight will be the greatest part of it whether that day seems incredibly far away from now or not.

This is where two more meal types come into the plan: Crossovers (XO) and S Helpers (SH). They are the friends of pregnant women, children, high-metabolism husbands (you know, those who have to eat all day just so their jeans don't fall down), and those of us who are close to or at goal weight.

It is important to know that these types of meals, while not as weight-loss inducing, are part of the plan, just as S and E meals and
Fuel Pulls are. They are not “cheat meals” even if they don't cause the scale to go down. They'll both be explained in more detail, but the gist of a
Crossover meal is that it is the opposite of an S or an E meal. That means that instead of separating the fuels of fats and carbs, it pairs them together in a safe, blood-sugar-friendly way and always in a protein-rich environment. Crossovers are the right way to “
tandem fuel,” which means to burn more than just one primary fuel in your meal. They keep weight on healthfully, so they are eaten more frequently once you have reached goal weight (along with S and E meals, too). They help ensure pregnant women gain enough pregnancy weight and have plenty of rich milk to feed babies, and they meet the high metabolic needs of growing children.

Baby Step 4: Crossovers are not cheats. They are important meals that help us maintain weight and meet the different dietary needs of more demanding stages in our lives.

So what do we have so far? S meals…E meals…Fuel Pulls…Crossovers. We mentioned one more—now welcome
S Helpers to the stage. If you're just starting out and want to shed pounds, you probably won't be utilizing S Helpers for a while, so you won't have to spend much time figuring out this last meal type. Still, the concept is pretty easy. They are a basic S meal (one that focuses on the fuel of fats) but they add just a little bit of carbs in the form of starch or fruit. They can help people who desire weight loss but want the loss to go a bit slower. Remember, fast weight loss is not always best.

S Helper meals are great for pregnant women (especially pregnant women with gestational diabetes). They are useful for those of us who are close to goal weight or at goal weight and they are fantastic for children with weight issues, too. They can very gently and healthfully help overweight children slim down.

Baby Step 5: S Helpers are great for individuals who are closer to goal weight, pregnant or nursing women, or children who need to safely slim down.

In a perfect world (one in which we all have super-high metabolisms and no insulin resistance) there wouldn't be a need for this separation of fuels to find a trim waistline. We'd be able to burn through our carbs in our food, then the fat in our food, and not worry about burning that third fuel of excess adipose tissue (body fat). But most of us grow up in a state very far removed from biblical times when people were not faced with the vast array of food choices we are constantly bombarded with today. The foods spoken about in the Bible, such as a hunk of rustic sourdough bread, raw goat's or sheep's milk (likely cultured, which reduced sugars), or a bit of roasted meat or fish with herbs, were far gentler on blood-sugar levels than our modern-day foods are.

Sometimes we read in the scriptures about folk eating honey or a few dates, but those forms of glucose were very much needed due to their more physically demanding lives. We ride in cars, they walked. We use a washing machine and turn on a tap for water. They beat clothes in a stream and had to haul water from a well. You get the picture. And cells that were not fed a lifetime of a too-high carb diet would have been much more insulin receptive—in direct contrast to the
epidemic of insulin resistance that afflicts most of us adults now. We are not date or honey haters but there are seasons of our lives during which some foods help and some foods hinder.

We must get proactive. We cannot take a “normal approach” to food any longer because so-called normal meals these days usually result in too much weight gain for most body types. The reason, of course, is that they are shockingly full of hidden carbs and high sugars and our bodies have had enough!

Let's look at a recap of our baby-step basics; then in the next few chapters we'll look at these different fuel types in more detail so you can begin putting together a meal or two on your own real soon.

W
hat you'll love about this kind of meal is that it lives up to its name. It is ultra-satisfying. Come here, you creamy, drippy, succulent
S meal, with all your rich, buttery goodness, and get in my tummy! That's the way we Trim Healthy Mamas look at our S meals. We're shamelessly brazen about them.

There will be many
examples of S meals as you keep reading through the book, but here is a quick visual picture of what an S Evening Meal might be:

S meals are liberal with
fats so they must have lower carbs if they are to assist in weight loss. That is the trick to get you chugging on the Trim Train. It's important to remember to keep grains and most fruits (with the exception of berries) away from S meals. You can bring carbs back in with fats more often once you are close to or at goal weight.

Think of a seesaw. S meal ratios look like this on a seesaw. Look at the difference in heights between carbs and fats. Note that when fat is higher in a meal, carbs are naturally lower. Protein sits solidly at the balancing point of the seesaw.

You might be surprised at some of the foods we suggest as “good fats.” Most of us are taught that extra-virgin olive oil and avocados are the two exclusive members in the elite “good fats” group. Perhaps a few raw nuts get included from time to time but membership stops there. We're not downing olive oil and avocados, but this “good fats” group is like a popular high-school clique that looks down on the “out crowd.” Liberal amounts of olive oil are on the plan—what a great way to combat inflammation in the body. But olive oil has never had to bear teasing and wear a sign on its back saying,
I WILL GIVE YOU HEART DISEASE
. Half an avocado on your salad is another wonderful option. But avocado hasn't had to endure the hurt of being called an artery clogger.

You're going to open your mind to making friends with the kicked-around nerd fats, the underdogs. These so-called no-no fats like egg yolks, butter, red meat, coconut oil, red palm oil, and some full-fat dairy like heavy cream and hard cheeses are going to have their day in the sun (if you don't have sensitivities to dairy)!

Many families on the plan also enjoy
bacon! Nothing better than bacon and eggs to start your Saturday morning off right. Ain't nobody gonna feel sorry for themselves eating a breakfast like that! We enjoy bacon, too, but use the turkey variety due to our biblical beliefs. The choice to eat real pork bacon and other meats not deemed clean in Leviticus and Deuteronomy in the Bible is completely up to you. We can't help but squeeze in the point that God surely knew what He was talking about when He suggested in the scriptures which meats were made for our bodies to eat and which weren't. (Okay—nuff said 'bout that—don't want to start a big ol' debate.) Got a pig fattening up in your backyard? Have at it!

Saturated fats like butter and coconut oil are far too often on the naughty lists of the
media and diet “dictocrats.” They've been given a bad rap over the years and it is hard to shake these ingrained notions. The oils we suggest you cook with are coconut oil, butter, or red palm oil. These are the most saturated oils and therefore safest oils to heat. Most vegetable oils (like canola oil) are highly unstable when heated and can turn into trans fats. If you want to stick with the cool club and not give the nerds a fair try in your
cooking, olive oil and grapeseed oil may be okay for light sautéing here and there at lower heats. We also enjoy the flavor of sesame oil for certain dishes.

Most cold-pressed oils are fine for S meals in a raw state; however, we suggest you steer clear of canola, corn, vegetable, and soybean oil. We understand, though, that soybean oil is an ingredient in most store-bought mayonnaise. Our Drive Thru Sue and mayo-loving Mamas may not care too much about this and still purchase their favorite brand of mayonnaise; and if this helps keep them on their plan, then
woot!
You can find mayonnaise made with healthier oils at health food stores, but they are a little more expensive. Hey, try making your own! It's easy.

We spent many years as vegans, extremely skeptical of the saturated fats in butter, egg yolks, and red meat. We'd read countless books about the perils of meat and fat and they all had scientific evidence to back up their theories. It was biblical truth that finally freed us. The angel of the Lord—or what the Hebrew language depicts as Jehovah Himself (in Genesis 18)—ate both butter and red meat in the meal Abraham set before Him. Was He setting us a bad example? Of course not. Deuteronomy 14:4 says, “These are the beasts which ye shall eat; the ox, the sheep, the goat.…” Hmm…did you notice that two of those animals out of three are red meat of the fatty kind? And look at that word
shall.
It doesn't say, “Well, if you have to eat meat, which is second best to plant food, try to cut back and just eat a little fish or chicken now and then…” No, it clearly says you SHALL.

Fully embracing scriptures like this and many others, we found, requires trust. Could we trust our Creator that He knew better than the diet gurus we had been following all those years? And asking ourselves that question gave us a quick answer: Duh, of course we could! You can still be a vegetarian Trim Healthy Mama, as we outline in
Chapter 25
, “Heads Up: Vegetarians!,” but one of our biggest reasons for eating a plant-based diet was fear—and that's no way to live!

Letting go of all our past food theories felt like skydiving out of an airplane: terrifying yet exhilarating. Incredibly, we soon came to learn science backs up God's word over and over again.
Butter is rich in antioxidants and boasts high amounts of selenium, which shields the body from free radical damage. It is rich in iodine, which is essential to thyroid health and protective of breast and ovarian cancers. It contains a readily absorbable form of vitamin A and is an excellent form of vitamin D, which maintains strong bones and lowers the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis. If you're still having some trouble shaking the “butter is bad” theory, you may need some therapy. Try saying this a few times: “Oooh, I love me some buttah!!!”

You've got Three Amigos that help you master S meals.

1.
Non-starchy Veggies

Remember, we don't want blood sugar to be the chief fuel in an S meal. It is fat's turn to “burn, baby, burn.” Aside from protein, which is the anchor of all meal types, non-starchy veggies are huge players in S meals as they have minimal effect on your blood sugar. “What's a non-starchy vegetable?” you ask. Basically any vegetable that is not a root vegetable (like a potato, sweet potato, or carrot) or a starch (such as corn). That still leaves you with literally hundreds of choices. We want you to eat plenty of non-starchy veggies—oodles of them, all scrumptiously prepared. And don't get all caught up with counting the carbs in them or limiting amounts like many low-carb diets suggest. They are low enough in carbs that they will not cause much of a rise in blood sugar even with large helpings.

Non-starchy veggies are in the Fuel Pull category. We have an example list of them in the chapter on Fuel Pulls (see
this page
) for you to look at. For interest's sake, we count only
net carbs on Trim Healthy Mama, which is total carbs minus fiber. Most non-starchy veggies have between two and six net carbs, with a few slightly higher and some even lower. Lettuce and other leafy greens have the lowest amounts of starch of all vegetables. They have less than one gram of carb per serving and minuscule calories. That is ridiculously low, so filling up on them makes perfect sense. Any form of tasty animal protein like chicken, beef, or salmon over a nice, BIG plate of lettuce with succulent dressing makes a quick, complete, slimming, and inexpensive meal.

Sadly, non-starchy veggies are usually overshadowed by sides like potatoes and mac and cheese—but that's about to change! Non-starchies can also accompany E meals, but when they are paired with fats in an S meal…“oh my.”

Many conventional diets want you to eat lots of vegetables, but dry leaves and stalks are unappetizing to most of us. We have to force ourselves to be good and try to get our quota in, and some of us avoid them altogether (you know who you are). There is nothing worse than being told not only to eat more broccoli, but to eat it dry and unsavory. This goes against human taste buds, we think. But broccoli is delicious tossed with butter and sea salt, or made into a creamy casserole. Roasted veggies with coconut oil—divine! Sautéed veggies with a peanut Thai sauce—yum! Cauliflower creamed up with butter and sea salt—a great sub for mashed potatoes!

Speaking of which…time for your first little quiz.

Got the answer? Not yet? Little hint then: White potatoes have lots of carbs and cause a significant rise in your blood sugar. Clicking now? Is option D starting to ding ding ding? Yep…you're right…what occurs is a serious case of tandem fueling. Your body will have to first burn through all that glucose from the potatoes before it gets around to burning any of the fat in the steak. One thing you can bank on: No body-fat burning will occur. Potatoes can be a bit rough on blood sugar so we want you to give them a little rest for a while. You'll be busy using all these other delightful veggies, so you won't feel deprived. You can eat a white potato here and there once you're at Crossover stage.

2.
Nuts