INDULGE: Weight-loss foods to eat and not to eat

I am so excited to share my final jewels with you for the Indulge event. Now, in this Indulge video, I'm going to share information that nobody talks about, even people that are trying to teach you to lose weight. Because a lot of times we confuse what healthy food is. We confuse that with what food is good for weight loss. Now, weight loss food is also healthy, but it's also primed and really specific to help you shed your fat. And a lot of the things I'm going to share with you are really substitutions to things you're already eating. But if you eat the version I share with you, you're just going to lose weight so much easier without even knowing it. And that's why it's really key just to have a little information that will help you really make it easy for yourself to lose weight and be to continue indulging in yourself. So let's get started. Okay, so this is one of my favorite things to share. And first of all, I want to talk to you about the fact that you can drink coffee when you're losing weight. You can indulge in coffee. In fact, I feel and I believe that coffee is one of the best things that you can do while you're losing weight and after you've lost weight because it's a zero calorie drink and some caffeine throughout the day is fine. But when I first started losing weight, I was really concerned because I felt like everything that everyone had told me, I felt like I needed to take out coffee. And at a minimum, if I didn't take out coffee, I wouldn't be able to drink my beautiful French vanilla creamer in the morning and have tons of sugar, which I loved having my coffee. Well, let me be truthful with you. If you do want to lose weight, you do want to cut your sugar, but you can still enjoy your coffee and you can even have a creamer in it as long as you make a good decision about what that creamer is. And so what I want to share with you today is some of my very best suggestions on if you're going to have creamer. These are the ones I suggest. Any of these are fine. The first two are really milk. So you can either have the Organic Valley whole milk or Organic Horizon whole milk. And I really recommend these because they're natural. The issue with creamers and why I don't really have any dairy creamers on here is because other than natural milk is because a lot of creamers have really unhealthy ingredients. In them. And I want to share with you that. So I want to share with you what my recommendations are, is if you're having black coffee, you can add some of these milks that I've suggested to you. Notice that you have a nice amount of protein in them, but then you also have, you have some carbohydrates, but the sugar is generally low. Anything that's below 5 grams of sugar is fine. It's better for you. The lower the sugar, the better for weight loss. And then if you want to have an actual creamer, it's a little bit thicker. I really recommend having a non dairy creamer. So something like almond milk creamer. So Califia Farms has an unsweetened milk creamer and then a vanilla creamer. And of course the unsweetened one. It's a little bit less calories, a little bit less fat. It has zero carbs, it has zero sugar. And when you go with the vanilla, it has a little bit of sugar. So if you like some sweetness, you can go with the vanilla one. It's not, not that bad at all. It's pretty amazing. But you can see what taste you like. And then if you don't do dairy and you don't, and you can't have nuts, then you can try this. So delicious. Coconut milk, French vanilla, which is so delicious, still low in everything. And then also you can make your own almond milk if you'd like. Now I have detailed information about all of these on my blog. So I have the link down there. And if you are interested in having a, if you are interested in knowing the link for something, just comment below and let me know. Okay. Another frequently asked question I get asked from my weight loss clients are what yogurt should I eat? Now I really recommend Greek yogurt. If you're going to have yogurt, have Greek yogurt. And that is because Greek yogurt is the way that it's pasteurized is a lot different than regular milk. And as a result it has a lot less sugar, which most milk products have. But then it also has a lot more, I mean, a tremendous amount more protein. So if you were to look at a non Greek yogurt, what you would find is that they have probably something around 6 or so grams of protein. They have a lot of sugar. And the thing is, they're not really going to keep you full because they have such less protein and they give you that sugar spike. So I actually do not recommend yogurt for weight loss unless you're having Greek yogurt. Now, the thing about Greek yogurt is that it's a great protein source that's quick and on the go. The other thing that it's really great for is if you're vegetarian and you are looking for more options to get protein, this is a perfect way to add protein to your breakfast or to have it in your snack or even as a supplement to a meal. Now, the ones that I Recommend Are the Fage 2% Greek yogurt plain because it has the most protein. It has 20 grams of protein. Now, what I recommend is between 20, 20 and 30 grams of protein in your breakfast. So if you have this and you have one or two eggs, then you are just optimizing your protein. And what you're doing is you're really prepping your body to start losing weight. So I really recommend that one. The other one that I think is really great as well is the Oikos triple zero. That one has a lot of fiber in it along with 15 grams of protein. And when you have a lot of fiber, that helps keep you full along with having more protein. So those are two really great options. And then you can take a look at these other ones. You can look at the, you know, you can kind of compare things. I have literally stayed in the supermarket for hours just like comparing everything I'm getting for these specific nutrition elements. But I've laid it all out for you right here. So these are some options. You can really choose any of them. But you know, my best one is the one with the highest protein. And then if you don't haveif you do not eat dairy, then I also have that one. So for vegans or for people that do not eat dairy at all, you can get what the Cocoyo Living Coconut yogurt plain that one has. It doesn't have that much protein, but it does have very low sugar. And so it's kind of, it's really just. I mean, it's good for you to add in your smoothie. It's going to keep you slightly full, but it doesn't have much fiber or much protein. But it's an option if you like to have yogurt. And you can always supplement it and add some things in it, like you can add a fiber supplement in it. It can be a base for other things. Now, I really like to share this fact with you in that this is because vegetables are obviously extremely important for a healthy lifestyle. But if you want to lose weight, there's a few vegetables that you should be eating more of. And there's a few vegetables you should be not eating at all. Okay, now starting with, I'm going to go over that and then I'm going to talk to about carrots. Because carrots are so common and so popular that a lot of people ask if they're good for weight loss. Well, I'll tell you my answer. But let me tell you some of the best veggies for weight loss, they have low sugar and then they generally have low carbs. And my feeling is, if you're going to have carbs, go for something that satisfies you, that gives you that carbohydrate satisfaction. Like if you want carbs, you can get it in your breads, or you can get it in, you can get it in. It even comes like lentils and beans. But you want to really keep your carbs down in your vegetables if you want to indulge yourself. That's because a lot of times we indulge ourselves with other foods, but with vegetables, we're really eating it for the fiber and we're really eating it because it gives us so much nutrition, so many vitamins, so many nutrients. And so we really want to maximize vegetables for those things. When you're in the weight loss mode. So some of the best veggies for weight loss are zucchini, cauliflower and asparagus. Other ones that I really love are also broccoli and brussels sprouts. And that's because they have a ton of fiber and they keep you full. And some of the worst veggies for weight loss, other people don't ever talk about. You probably don't really know this, but actually sweet potatoes are not good for weight loss. They have 13 grams of sugar for one cup. And these are all for one cup. Corn has 30 grams, 29 grams of carbs. Don't eat corn if you want to lose weight. And the other one is peas. Peas are not as kind of anti weight loss as corn and as sweet potatoes, but it is not necessarily so super good. It also has 125 calories, whereas if you're eating a cup of cauliflower, it only has 25 calories. Now, carrots are in the middle. They have 6 grams of sugar, which is not as bad as peas or corn or sweet potatoes. And it has 6 grams of sugar and 12 grams of carbs and 53 calories. So it's kind of in the middle. It's something that you can have if you want to, but it does have sugar. And really the Best way to lose weight is to indulge yourself in other ways than having sugar, but really, really enjoying what you're eating. But if you're going to eat vegetables, eat vegetables without sugar. That's my recommendation. Because if you're going to eat sugar, eat sugar in the forms you want. Eat a piece of chocolate cake. I'd rather have a piece of chocolate cake. Then eat some corn. Okay? So if you're going to do it, do it right. If you're trying to be. Trying to lose weight, then do it. Then really be efficient about losing weight. Ok, and now we're back to is corn good for weight loss? I already talked about that, but I want to show you some other vegetables as well. So, first of all, the answer is no. It has more calories, carbs and sugars than most other common vegetables. And for faster weight loss, you want to have other vegetables. But another option is that you can actually blend corn or blend some of the unhealthier vegetables with other vegetables. So you can make like a corn salad or a corn mix where you're not eating only spoonfuls of corn or spoonfuls of peas, but maybe you have a blend of it. Like you have some, like corn and green beans or carrots and celery. You blend things. But just talking about some of the other vegetables. So if you look at corn, it has 132 calories. Look down at broccoli, it has 40 calories. Green beans have 34. If you're looking at the carbs, I already told you, corn has 29. You go to green beans, it has eight, and broccoli only has six. You do want to keep your carbs low if you are wanting to lose weight and you want to eat the right kinds of carbs. So the right kinds of carbs are from vegetables. They're also from beans and vegetable beans and lentils and then other healthier kinds of breads, which I'm going to talk to you about. But if you're eating 29 grams of carbs, I would rather have that from two slices of bread than having it from a couple of corn. And then the sugar is. It kind of varies in some of these, but you'll see actually that carrots, the sugar in carrots, is quite high compared to even corn and peas. And that's why it's kind of a maybe in terms of weight loss. But then when you go to broccoli and green beans, you have everything low. So, you know, a summary is that corn has two times the calories of carrots and four times the carbs of green veggies. And it has three to six times the carbs and more than double the sugar of most other vegetables highlighted above. I really don't recommend corn for weight loss. Okay, now I get the question a lot of times about what is an alternative for rice, for white rice, Because a lot of us love white rice. We've perhaps grown up with white rice. It's a very common thing to have on your plate or when you go out. And so white rice is really one of those things that, yes, I'm going to be upfront with you. If you take rice out of your diet, you're going to lose weight a lot faster than before. You just are. And if you look at what white rice has in it, it's really not nutritious in any way. It has 120, 21 calories per half cup, and it has 26 grams of carbs. It has zero fiber, has a tiny bit of protein. So what that means is it's not going to keep you very full. So if you've ever had rice, you know, rice with maybe a few other light things, it's very, very. It's very common that you would feel quite hungry about an hour later. And that's because there's really nothing in white rice that's filling you up. It's literally calories. It's calories and it's not keeping you full. So if you want to lose weight, what you need to do to make the process indulgent is to focus on eating foods that are filling, lower calorie, higher fiber and higher protein, and of course, lower sugar. And so I'm showing you that, because without you thinking about all that can sound complicated. That's why I want to share these specific suggestions with you. And so there's a couple other myths on this slide that I'm going to bust for you, and that's the fact that quinoa is good, is healthy. So quinoa is not unhealthy, but it's not good for weight loss. It has 20 grams of carbs, it has some protein, it has some fiber. But take a look at that and let me walk you down this, because it really goes best or worst to best option as an alternative for weight loss to rice. Now, brown rice is also actually very similar to quinoa in the fact that it has quite a bit of carbs, doesn't have too much fiber, doesn't have too much protein, and it's 100 plus calories. So you're having that, and then you're having all the other things on your plate. Couscous is a little bit better. Then you're down to broccoli rice. Broccoli rice is amazing. You can make broccoli rice, but do what I do. I buy it frozen, and then I just heat it in the microwave or on my stove. But you can also make it. It has 27 grams of Calor calories, 6 grams of carbs. You're getting a little fiber, getting a little protein. But the best of all is cauliflower rice. And we looked at some of the best veggies for weight loss, and you saw that cauliflower was one of them. So imagine having cauliflower rice, which looks just like rice, and when you put a little salt and pepper on it and you put a little bit of. You put a little, maybe you want to put a little bit of butter in, is so delicious and so tasty. In fact, it's going to fill you up for longer than rice does because it has a little bit of fiber in it. And you're not getting that sugar rush with all the carbs because carbs break down to sugar. So you're not getting that sugar rush that you get from white rice, which when you get a sugar rush, what happens is that you get a sugar crash soon after that. Really go for the broccoli rice or cauliflower rice. I actually just recently made a dish where I mixed these, I combined them, and then I served it with other things, and it was so delicious. So amazing. Something that kids will love also, especially when you mix it with other foods. Now, this is a really important question about what the healthiest bread to eat is. So I don't think you have to take bread out of your diet to lose weight. But I want to teach you how you can indulge in a smarter way. And the best way to indulge in bread. My suggestion and something that I personally eat is Ezekiel low sodium bread. So actually, Ezekiel bread in general is really great. So Ezekiel bread, it's a sprouted grain bread. I talk all about what sprouted grain is in my blog post@masalabody.com BestBreadForWeightLoss and I really break down why these are my favorite and best suggestions for weight loss. But Ezekiel bread, it has only 80 calories a slice. And then you're also getting 4 grams of protein, you're getting 3 grams of fiber, and it's 15 grams of carbs. So the first thing I do when I look at bread is I look at the carbs, because bread can usually have a high amount of carbs. And so that's where you're trying to really, that's the thing that makes it not optimal for weight loss is when there's a lot of carbs in bread. So you can still have bread, but have the ones that have lower carbs and higher fiber. Because what you're doing there is you are keeping yourself full and you're not overloading on carbs, but you're still getting to eat bread. So I recommend the low sodium bread if you can find it. Just because lower sodium causes less bloating, that means your tummy stays in. Your tummy looks flatter. And it is flatter because it's not bloating due to sodium. That's in a lot of normal foods like we're talking about. One quick thing about Ezekiel bread is that you'll find it in the freezer section, not in the regular part of where the other breads are. So these are some other options that you can look at. Silver hill sprouted organic 20 train grain. Grain Train Arnold Double Protein bread. And this one has a lot of protein, 7 grams of protein. Even the Silver Hill Sprouted organic, that one has 6 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. That's a lot. That's amazing. I mean, that is so great. These are just really great options. Really. Just going from the best to still pretty good, but just not as high. But all these options are really good. Then we have sprouted for Life Gluten Free Flax bread, Pepperidge Farms 15 grain whole grain, and then Arnold Sandwich Thins, which that a lot of times we look for. I think as a parent, I look for this for my kids. And you'll notice that it's okay. It's not as necessarily great for weight loss as you would think it was because they're thin, so you think they would be less carbs, et cetera. But there's 27 grams of carbs per slice in 150 grams of 150 calories. And so that you're getting quite. It has protein, it has fiber. Eating quite a bit more. Whereas if you eat the Ezekiel bread, you're basically a half of that. So you could have two pieces of Ezekiel bread. Okay. All right, so now I want to share with you Cereal for weight loss. Now, many of us may feel that we cannot eat cereal if we're trying to lose weight. And I do recommend having a higher protein breakfast. But once in a while, if you want to have a bowl of cereal. These are the options that you can have. One quick thing to note before I go into this is that I do recommend that you have your cereal with almond milk or with a non dairy milk because a lot of the sugar that comes from a breakfast cereal experience, a lot of it actually does come from the milk. So make sure you're having it with an almond milk. I love an unsweetened vanilla almond milk. It tastes so delicious. And of course if you don't have, if you don't have almond or don't have nuts, then you can have another non nut milk. So a couple things here. Just notice I want you to really keep focused on the sugar because the sugar is really where cereals get really unhealthy and then also the carbs. So we're trying to keep the carbs low and keep the sugars low. If you are able to add some protein to this, it's great. You look at Cheerios, the traditional Cheerios, it's actually not bad for weight loss. It is 20 grams of carbs and it only has 1 gram of sugar. It also has 3 grams of fiber. I also want you to take a look at Even Kix is very similar. Now post Bran Flakes has more carbs but it has more fiber. So what that means is that you're going to stay full for longer, but it also has quite a bit more sugar so you're kind of doing a balancing thing there. And then post Shredded Wheat is okay. It has almost double the carbs of Cheerios but it still has zero sugar and it has a lot of fiber. So I suggest if you like cereal, have it once in a while. Have it with almond milk or another non dairy milk and it can be something that you keep for once in a while. And these are the best options for you to choose so that you can still indulge in your breakfast. You have it once in a while and you know the best option for yourself so that you can keep losing weight. Now the ones to avoid. One of these is pretty obvious. Even though it says Energy Clusters that makes you feel like it might be healthy. This is also important for you to know for your kids because if they're eating this, they can actually eat the ones on the left hand side. The best cereal for weight loss because it's not as high sugar and we don't want to give our kids sugar either and a lot of those kids will like. But once in a while, of course for kids, in my opinion is you don't have to be so so you know specific and focus on all the time. But you do want to provide, usually as a parent, healthier options. But in case you even as an adult want to have Frosted Flakes, just to let you know, if you look at the carbs, the sugar in Frosted Flakes, it's a lot higher than something like Cheerios or Kix, something that you may think this is pretty much probably a myth that granola is good for weight loss. Well, guess what, it's not good for weight loss. Yes, it's healthy in that that it's better than eating processed type foods. But look at this one cup. We are definitely measuring apples to apples. So we're measuring one cup to one cup everywhere. And there's 72 grams of carbs and 26 grams of sugar in this low fat granola. Okay, please do not get this if you want to lose weight because this is what could be keeping you fat is eating things like granola. Now, honey bunches of oats, 62 grams of carbs, 26 grams of sugar that is just out of this world. You have to avoid that. You absolutely cannot have that. I'm sharing this with you to educate you. If you want to have cereal, have the ones that are lower sugar and lower carb. Okay? So I do want to share with you a few options for protein powder because I really, really do recommend protein powder as part of your day. And that is because. Because it's a really quick way to get protein that's low calorie and that's fast. So what I like to do is I like to mix one scoop of protein powder with almond milk or you can mix it with water as well. I do that as well. I usually add in a teaspoon of turmeric for anti inflammation and it doesn't really have a strong taste. So it's a perfect way to get that into my day. One of the best whey protein powders, and I do suggest that you read my article on this around the best protein powders and that will tell you more about the difference with whey Casein, Paleo, Vegan. But I do recommend Optimum Nutrition Platinum Whey Velocity Vanilla. I love that whey protein. And then really the reason I've chosen these is because the ingredients are really good. They're not artificial. They don't have artificial sweeteners in it. Or if they do, they have one that I'm okay with. This one, optimum nutrition has 30 grams of protein and it has only one gram of sugar for 140 calories, that's like amazing. And then we're also looking at naked nutrition, which is really natural and really good for you. And then we have a grass fed whey protein with the vanilla bean, one casein protein powder. Just to tell you it helps you. This is something to have at night. So those are some suggestions there. And then paleo protein powder. Those are some. The one that I personally use is under vegan protein powder. It's optimum nutrition, gold standard. I like to have a vegan protein powder. I found that it bloats me less than whey protein powder. That's the one that I get. It has 1 gram of sugar, 24 grams of protein. It's extremely low calorie. And then you can also try Garden of Life or Profit vegan protein powder. There's also a lot of other protein powders out there. Really generally what you're looking for is, what you're looking for is high protein between 20 and 30 grams. You're looking for your calories at try to keep it under 150. And then you want to keep your sugar at less than 3 grams of sugar. Okay, so now this, I wanted to show you here that a lot of times people will ask, I'm trying so hard to lose weight, but I can't lose weight. What is happening? Well, the thing that's happening is that a lot of times this is what I found by coaching hundreds of women that mistakenly we are eating too many healthy fats or too many fats in our day. And it's very important to have fat. I don't want you eating only low fat food foods, but you want to really look at the food that you're eating because foods with fat are very dense in calories. So for example, if you look at half an avocado on the left side, it has 161 calories and 15 grams of fat. But when you have one whole avocado, that's 322 calories and 30 grams of fat. So double is really, really a lot. Now the ones on the left are the serving sizes I recommend. So 2 tablespoons peanut butter is 16 grams of fat, but if you double that, that's 32 grams of fat. And you know, in one day I'm going to give a general guideline. It definitely varies depending on your weight, but around 65 grams of fat is something that you could work with. So if you're getting 32 grams of fat right there in your peanut butter or 30 in one avocado, that doesn't leave you much coconut oil, similar things. Salmon, salmon, 4 ounces is great. You're getting 10, almost 9 grams of fat. You can even have a little bit more than that if you want. But then if you double it to 8 oun, that becomes almost 20 grams of fat and 400 calories. So when you're thinking about why am I not losing weight? I'm trying so hard. Look at the fats that you're eating and look at the quantities, look at the portion sizes for your healthy fats, okay? And then finally, this is a question that I get asked quite a bit, which is what to eat at night to lose weight. And you can eat foods at night to lose weight. But what I recommend is to have a few of these foods. It's really helping you because it's keeping you satisfied throughout the night. And you're not eating specific kinds of carbs that will usually really turn into fat while you're sleeping, but you're eating healthy fats or healthy proteins. So having some coconut oil, whether you have that in like you drink it in something or you put it on top of your dinner, I always put one tablespoon of coconut oil or half a teaspoon, half a tablespoon of coconut oil on top of my meal at dinner time. And that really helps me sleep well and stay satiated through the night. If you are craving something sweet like ice cream, try to have Greek yogurt and maybe add a few berries in there. If you're craving something creamy, have 1 or 2 tablespoons of peanut, almond or other nut or seed butter. If you want to have something substantial, have canned tuna or some fresh meat that you have smoked salmon or white turkey, have a smoothie or have high fiber cereal or whole grain bread if you really are feeling like something like that. So I hope that this really helped you make some healthy choices and figure out what foods are good for weight loss and what foods you can be eating more of. And so when you're armed with this kind of information, weight loss goes so much smoother. And when you can start integrating this into your day, it becomes easy to lose weight and you feel indulgent and you feel in control because you know what you're eating eating and you know why you're eating it. Thank you so much. It's been so amazing having you here at Indulge. I have enjoyed sharing this information so much with you. But I do recommend Optimum Nutrition Platinum Whey Velocity Vanilla. I love that whey protein. And then really what we're the reason I've chosen these is because the ingredients are really good. They're not artificial. They don't have artificial sweeteners in it or if they do, they have one that I'm okay with with this one. Optimum nutrition has 30 grams of protein and it has only 1 gram of sugar for 140 calories. That's like amazing. And then we're also looking at naked nutrition which is really natural and really good for you. And then we have a grass fed whey protein with the vanilla bean, one casein protein powder just to tell you it helps you. This is something to have at night. So those are some suggestions there. And then paleo protein powder. Those are some. The one that I personally use is under vegan protein powder. It's optimum nutrition gold standard. I like to have a vegan protein powder. I found that it bloats me less than whey protein powder. And so that's the one that I get. It has 1 gram of sugar, 24 grams of protein. It's extremely low calorie. And then you can also try Garden of life or profi vegan protein powder. There's also a lot of other protein powders out there. Really generally what you're looking for is, what you're looking for is high protein between 20 and 30 grams. You're looking for your calories at, you know, try to keep it under 150. And then you're looking at, you want to keep your sugar at less than 3 grams of sugar. Okay, so now this I wanted to show you here that one. A lot of times people will ask I'm trying so hard to lose weight, but I can't lose weight. What is happening? Well the thing that's happening is that a lot of times this is what I found by coaching hundreds of women that mistakenly we are eating too many healthy fats or too many fats in our day. And it's very important to have fat. I don't want you eating only low fat foods, but you want to really lower.