My First Steps to PP
“What should I eat to lose weight?" - this is the question that most of the female population of the planet is looking for an answer to. And I am one of them. I have always been quite slim, but during my first pregnancy I gained extra weight. About 18 kilograms. In fact, the weight of an average first-grader. Too much for me! Like many women, I did not want to stay with this gain, and I decided to do something. The first thing I did was start doing sports. However, as you know, physical exercise is only 30% of the work to get in good shape. Everything else is determined by nutrition. I tried strict diets and rejected them for myself, since they only gave a short-term effect with a quick "rollback" to the previous indicators. And in general, diets are a lot of stress for the body, an additional burden.
Photo:personal archive of Ksenia AndreevaAs a mother of three small children close in age, I often did not have enough time not only to choose and prepare healthy food - or even just sit down and drink tea! However, over time, I realized that healthy, nutritious food is a must-have, without which it is much harder to cope with all the chores and - an important point - to remain in a great mood. Proper nutrition makes us feel good. And the better we feel, the more we can do at work, at home and in other areas of life.
Less sugar
Let's move to a regular supermarket - what's in ita standard grocery basket? I bet that most products will contain sugar, unhealthy fats, salt, white flour, as well as a considerable amount of food additives, preservatives and flavor enhancers. About 80% of the shelves of any grocery store are filled with these products. Why is that? They simply have a longer shelf life and are cheaper. In addition, the combination of salt, fat and sugar produces a very vivid taste impression, to which our taste buds easily get used. In his book Salt, Sugar and Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss calls this impression the “bliss point” - the very sought-after combination that all food manufacturers are trying to find. Here is the diet I follow every day: Breakfast: complex carbohydrates. Most often, this is oatmeal. Sometimes - pancakes or waffles on whole grain flour. I can add nuts, urbech, nut paste.Second breakfast: fruit. Sometimes dried fruit or a healthy dessert. If after sports - 2-3 proteins.Lunch: protein (meat/fish/poultry: baked, stewed, boiled, fried in a dry frying pan) + complex carbohydrates (side dish of healthy cereals) + fiber (vegetables - fresh or cooked in any form, not in oil). Fats in lunch are present in cold-pressed oil for salad dressing, or in avocado, or in meat/fish.Afternoon snack: fruit. Sometimes - a healthy dessert.Dinner: protein (meat/fish/poultry) + fiber (vegetables can be seasoned with oil).During the day, I also drink black coffee and tea. Of course, without sugar. Once a week or two I allow myself honey/maple syrup/date extract for dressing desserts or pancakes. If dinner was too early in relation to bedtime and by night I feel hungry, I try to cope with it with vegetables, sometimes berries or fruits (ideally, you shouldn’t eat fruits at night, but occasionally you can). I’ll add to the above that I haven’t drunk alcohol for over 5 years: the thing is that, like any source of light endorphins, alcohol after a while takes away even more energy than it gave. For me, given my extensive goals and objectives, this is an unaffordable luxury. I also haven’t eaten dairy products for a year, with the exception of low-fat cheeses once every couple of months. I gave it up because of lactose – milk sugar, and it helped me lose the last extra pounds after the birth of my youngest son in preparation for the beauty contest “Mrs. St. Petersburg”. I thought it would be a temporary activity, but so far even the smell of milk seems unpleasant to me. Nevertheless, I don’t rule out that I will someday return some dairy products to my diet.
Photo: Ksenia Andreevaeva's personal archive has always been quite slim, but during the first pregnancy she gained 18 kilos
Do not put salt on my wound
When consuming salt, it is very important to find the golden onemiddle. Yes, a person needs salt in a certain amount every day, but its excess increases the chances of developing gastritis, diabetes, arthritis and other unpleasant diseases. This is an unnecessary thing for a mother of many children, on whose health so much in the family depends! If you follow the recommendations of the WHO, an adult should consume no more than 5 grams of salt per day. These 5 grams include products that contain salt in themselves, even before any processing: meat, fish, cereals, vegetables, eggs. However, taking into account the addition of salt to food and the presence of salt in finished foods, its average daily consumption in an adult exceeds the WHO standards by 3-4 times! So, when you cook even simple vegetables, be sure to think about how much salt already exists in raw foods. Eating food without adding salt seems unusual only at first, but gradually the body will begin to distinguish between bland shades of food and feel natural tastes.
Oh, fat, saving and necessary
There are fats that are healthy and very necessary for ourbody. And there are saturated and processed fats, which are now added to almost any food. There have even been studies that have confirmed that the mechanism of action of fats is similar to the effect of narcotic substances. Therefore, when you are shaking with the desire to eat something from fast food, think: what if this is your addiction, and not hunger? The more a person consumes harmful fats, the higher the risk of cardiovascular diseases and problems with excess weight. But the right fats contained in olive oil, fish, nuts, avocados, bring only benefits to the nervous system and help to preserve female beauty, facilitating the absorption of proteins and vitamins.
What is left?
I don't suffer from dietary monotony at all.Followers of the principles of healthy eating have created quite a lot of recipes that allow you to diversify your diet with taste and health benefits and even prepare dishes reminiscent of fast food or desserts. For example, pizza on a "dough" of minced chicken, a hamburger with iceberg lettuce instead of a bun, banana ice cream and chocolate with honey. My favorite PP recipes for the weekend are chocolate pie, truffles, carrot cake, charlotte, apple pancakes and Viennese waffles. In order to pamper yourself with peace of mind, you just need to edit the recipe a little, replacing unhealthy products with their analogues (say, white flour with oatmeal, sugar with fruits or dried fruits), and switch to frying in a dry frying pan, baking in the oven, using a multicooker or a steamer. At first it may seem that PP dishes are devoid of any sweetness or saltiness, but over time the taste buds will learn to recognize the natural taste of foods that were previously muffled by sugar, salt and frying in oil.
O2 - give two!
I almost forgot the main thing:Drink enough water. Water helps remove toxins and carry oxygen throughout the body. Without enough water, a person becomes lifeless, lethargic, and apathetic. According to WHO, if you weigh 60 kg, you need to drink at least 2 liters of water per day. Drinking a lot of water is not easy. At first, you can simply forget about water, replacing it with coffee or tea. Or you can mistake the feeling of thirst for hunger, eating some snacks or fruits. But if you start offering yourself water more often, then gradually your body will get used to it, the feeling of thirst will return to you, and as you regularly quench it, you can feel greater lightness in your whole body and vital energy.
Photo: personal archive of Ksenia AndreevaWhen I leave the house, I take containers with my main meals, and I often cook separately for my husband and older children
Last warning
Life in the PP style contains not onlyadvantages, but also a number of difficulties, mainly of an organizational nature. For example, it takes me a lot of time to cook. Therefore, most often I cook very simple dishes (put in the oven and bake, pour boiling water and boil) and cook 3-4 dishes at a time: for example, I put buckwheat to boil, put fish in the oven to bake and fry vegetables in a dry frying pan at the same time. In addition, I often cook regular meals separately for my husband and older children. Organizing meals for the day is not the easiest either. I often take containers with main meals with me when I leave the house. After all, if you travel around the city all day, then under conditions of lack of time (a common situation for a mother of three children), without this supply of food it will be difficult to satisfy your hunger: proper food is rarely prepared quickly. That's why I have the perfect food thermos, a large selection of containers, and a supply of healthy snacks based on nuts and fruits in the car. Another not-so-pleasant aspect is that the right products are more expensive than food with preservatives. However, considering their health benefits and how much energy there will be for new feats, it should pay off. After adapting to this new lifestyle, your body will say thank you. Your appearance will become more attractive, and the amount of energy that will appear will help you cope with everything that work, family, hobbies and other areas of your life will present. Irina Popova, nutritionist, Mayer therapist, therapist, reflexologist:
— The benefits of exercise for losing extra poundskilograms is invaluable. If you cannot go to the gym, you can start your workout with morning exercises at home. But it is very useful to start the day with "gymnastics" of the digestive organs, to activate their work after a night's sleep, improve blood circulation and lymph flow. To do this, you need to take a deep breath through your nose and inflate your stomach, then slowly stroke your stomach clockwise as you exhale, repeating this 5-6 times. It is known that the process of burning fat occurs in intracellular structures - mitochondria, which are rich in muscles. Therefore, in order to maintain muscle mass in good shape, in addition to proper nutrition, systematic physical activity is necessary. There are various types of exercises for body shaping, you can find them on the Internet or consult a fitness trainer. Physical exercise not only helps keep the body in shape, but also promotes the production of hormones of joy - endorphins, which reduce appetite, improve mood and improve metabolism. Physical exercise improves immunity and the quality of sexual life.
