So a major role of fats in the diet is to keep us satisfied. Our bodies will keep sending us signals to find more food to satisfy our hunger. Without a sufficient quality and quantity of fat in our diet, we will not feel satisfied. Because this is real food that our bodies can actually use, we have more energy. What happens is when we eat whole food fats, we’re giving our bodies nutritious food and we become full–making it hard to overeat. Whole food fats fill you up and keep you satisfied.

And, eating fat actually helps you lose weight. I love my fats! A lot of people are afraid of fats, but don’t be scared! Fats are essential for health. So, basically, eating enough protein actually helps our body to build lean tissue. The other reason we really want to eat that 30-gram serving of protein is that it triggers something called “muscle protein synthesis.” Jonathan Bailor, author of the Calorie Myth says, “That’s because when we eat 30 grams or more of protein, the concentration of a specific amino acid in our blood, called leucine, becomes high enough to cause our body to refresh and renew our lean tissue.” That means that when you eat 300 calories of protein, only 105.5 of those calories can even be converted to fat because of the physiological processes of getting it to the cells. So, more than half of the calories from protein are used up in the digestion process!.Then, if our body needed to convert that to body fat, it would take an additional 25% of the calories to do so.Then, the next 33% or 70 calories of what is left is used converting the protein into glucose that can be used by the cells.The first 90 calories are used to change the protein to amino acids that our body can digest.In fact, when we eat protein, the first 30% of calories are burned just digesting it! So, say we had a meal with 300 protein calories. Why is protein so important for maintaining a healthy body weight? 👉🏽 RELATED POST: How to Stay Healthy while Chasing Your Dreams or a serving of salmon, beef, or chicken are a few examples.a cup of Greek yogurt or cottage cheese,.With each meal, eat a minimum of 20-30 grams of protein. What does that look like? That’s not because fat is bad (fat is great), but because fatty foods are actually classified as fats, not as proteins. You want the majority of your protein to come from lean protein sources. The next area where we want to focus on is protein.

It literally fills up my plate but has only 125 calories (not that we’re counting!) A typical side dish for me is an entire bag of frozen cauliflower or 6 servings of cauliflower. Of course, if you’ve dieted, you probably already know that veggies are really low in calories. So, how many servings of vegetables should you eat in a day? 10 or MORE! If you’ve dieted, or you are coming from this mentality of trying to always “eat less”, this is going to seem like a LOT of food! It might take you a while to adjust to eating such a large volume of food.

👉🏽 RELATED POST: How to Start Eating Healthy When You're Busy Vegetables should be the bulk of your diet by volume. So that means, if you look at your plate, vegetables are most of what you see. Vegetables are loaded with nutrition, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Think of non-starchy veggies, like lettuce, spinach, broccoli, mushrooms, etc. Pause for a minute and think: How many servings of vegetables did you have today? Yesterday? When you’re counting your vegetables, don’t include starches, like corn and potatoes. Research has shown that the number one indicator of health, living without disease, and even weight loss is the number of servings of vegetables a person eats. If you make a purchase from these links, I may earn a commission.

Healthy habits checklist