Trim Healthy Mama Plan (13 page)

B
y now you have all the information you need to get started. But we all learn and process information differently. Maybe you're a numbers person and feel like you'll only fully “get” the plan when you have harder numbers to refer to. We'll provide those in this chapter but with a caution: Food types trump numbers!

The problem when people start trying to reduce Trim Healthy Mama to mere math formulas is that the heart of the plan can become lost in the equations. The simple “science” is that oatmeal is an E food, and peanut butter is an S food. You put them together and you have a Crossover. But if you get too number-centric, you might start counting, squeezing, and crunching numbers until you figure out that if you eat only a tiny portion size—say one-third cup of your oatmeal, peanut butter recipe—you can make that Crossover fit into Fuel Pull mode. You start calling your recipe a Fuel Pull. Cackling with glee, you post it on your Trim Healthy Mama Pinterest page. You've gone loopy; they're coming with the white straitjacket to take you away! Don't let the numbers take over the nature of food fuels, because bad things will happen!

Trim Healthy Mama should not be stripped down to algorithms. You might even be able to fit half a Snickers bar into one of the fuel categories if you work the numbers enough, but that is far from the heart of this approach. Constantly doing math in your head is not the way to do this plan healthfully nor will it keep you feeling joyful on this journey for the rest of your life—unless math somehow fills you with glee! Guess that means math professors are exempt from our current lecture.

Many of us never count a thing and do spectacularly well on plan. We've given amounts of foods in the fuel lists so you won't have to count at all. If you don't want to be bothered with the numbers, skip this chapter with our blessing and just pair foods that match
each fuel in the way we have taught you so far. You can come back to this chapter in a few weeks or even months when you have a better handle on the plan and don't feel quite so overwhelmed. You may find the
numbers more interesting rather than overwhelming at that point.

Having said all that, if you're still here reading you know a few numbers can be helpful at times. They're handy to have when looking at packages in grocery stores. They can also help you determine if a new product or food can fit into plan.

When using store-bought,
low-carb bread items for S and FP needs, it is best to keep them at six grams or under for carbs and make sure they come in at under five grams of fat—preferably less. This means one Joseph's pita, a half to one whole large Joseph's lavash (men may want/need to use the full lavash), or two small or one medium low-carb tortilla. Let's say you make a pizza crust out of half of a Joseph's lavash and end your meal not quite filled up. Don't forget about your side salad and then fill up further with one of our many FP shakes or smoothies. No need to overdo the low-carb bread items. Light Rye Wasa or Ryvita crackers are not considered
Frankenfoods, because their ingredients are simply whole-grain rye, water, and salt. One Light Rye, Fiber, or Flax Seed Wasa cracker or one Sesame Ryvita cracker can be part of an S meal, two crackers work for FP, and four are an excellent choice for an E meal. Other types of Wasa crackers like Multi Grain, Hearty, Sourdough, and Whole Grain are a little higher in carbs, so don't include those in your FP or S meals. Enjoy two to three of those in an E meal and then have a small piece of fruit on the side, if desired.

You don't have to count the protein in every meal. Overall Trim Healthy Mama will give you ample protein. Some meals will be higher—upwards of thirty grams of protein—and some will still contain protein but may be lower than twenty grams, such as lentil soup without added chicken breast. (However, you can always add a couple scoops of Just Gelatin to your lentil soup to boost the protein content.) Most of your snacks will probably contain at least ten grams of protein, but occasionally eating an apple alone (without protein) is nothing to stress over unless you have extremely unstable blood sugar. Meals
and snacks will balance out and provide you with adequate protein for the repair your body needs.

If you really want a protein number to shoot for at every meal, twenty to twenty-five grams should do it. We don't want people using that as a hard-and-fast rule, though. If you do a vigorous workout, it is a good idea to aim to get twenty to twenty-five grams of protein within a couple of hours of the workout. Pristine Whey Protein Powder can help with that, as can Integral Collagen or Just Gelatin.

Most Mamas are tickled pink to no longer have to count calories or points. They are all too happy to let all that go. See ya, wouldn't want to be ya! But giving up tracking calories can be scary for others. They're afraid of overeating, afraid of letting go of the strictness for fear of how crazy they might go with all that freedom.

As we mentioned earlier, it truly takes time to tune in to your own hunger and full signals. We urge everyone to give no counting calories a fair try. Don't give up after a week if you gain a pound or two. Remember not to abuse calories by pouring a quarter cup of heavy cream into every cup of coffee or piling cheese on every S meal. Keep your Fuel Pull desserts and snacks handy and see how you do over a few weeks or a couple of months.

If you truly find that you do better keeping track of your calories, there is no shame in that. You can take premises from other diets that have helped you and apply them to your own long-term THM journey. We have had many Mamas come to Trim Healthy Mama after many years of counting with Weight Watchers or another plan. While so many enjoy the freedom of no longer tracking points, certain others apply their knowledge of points to their THM meals and make the combo work together for their own unique journey. Do this your way and let nobody shame you—neither yourself nor anybody else!

A
s time goes on and you gain confidence in the Trim Healthy Mama lifestyle, you'll feel ready to dig deeper into the principles behind the plan. We have a couple more concepts here for you to learn when that time comes. You can happily implement the plan right now without this further knowledge, as it doesn't have to be learned straight away. In fact, if you try to grasp all of this when you first start, it might feel like learning algebra when you are only ready for basic addition. Just as we mentioned in the previous chapter concerning numbers, you can come back to this when you feel good and ready. Meet you in the next chapter if you know this is you.

All you need to know as a beginner is an S is an S and it uses the fuel of fats rather than carbs. That basic knowledge should serve you well enough as you begin to juggle your fuels and freestyle between S and E meals with occasional Fuel Pulls and Crossovers, depending on your particular needs in life. But as you journey on you'll find out that you can also vary your S meals so they are not all extremely heavy.

Most of us love heavy S meals when we first start out; but just as we can learn to juggle our fuels, we can also learn to juggle our S meals, which sometimes allows for better weight loss and sometimes serves as a way to break through stalls.
Changing up your S meals between Heavy, Deep, and Light will be a boon to your long-term journey.

Heavy S—
These meals contain fats that also have a few carbs, like dairy and nuts. Heavy fats are the store-bought creamy dressings, all nuts and nut butters, avocados, and all forms of dairy products, including heavy cream. Some good examples of a Heavy-S meal would be our Cheeseburger Pie recipe (find that free recipe on our website) or a dessert like stevia-sweetened cheesecake with a nut crust. Heavy-S meals are a comforting part of Trim Healthy Mama and can be enjoyed by most of us, but if overdone, they may stall weight loss.

Deep S—
These meals contain only the purest fats without carbs. Your extra-virgin oils and the natural fat in meats and eggs are the fats that work their ultra-slimming magic here. Butter is also considered to be Deep S; however, coconut oil has more metabolism-revving qualities. Deep-S meals do not use some of the regular S-friendly foods that are a little bit higher in carbs, such as berries, dairy, tomatoes, onions, and nuts or seeds. They focus on leafy greens and the lowest-carb, non-starchy veggies and are liberal with superfood oils. An example of a Deep-S meal would be chicken, salmon, or beef on a huge plate of greens with some nice swirls of extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar. While most Deep-S meals are dairy-free, a very small amount (one tablespoon) of Parmesan or
light sheep's cheese like pecorino cheese may be okay on your salad. Another Deep-S example would be two or three butter fried eggs over a bed of sautéed spinach. Deep-S meals are extremely slimming and can be used after a cheat meal to help rid the damage of excess sugars and starches.

Light S—
Healthy fats of all kinds can be used in Light-S meals, but less of them. You'll still use more than you would in an E meal or Fuel Pull but you might choose to make a sandwich out of chicken breast instead of dark meat chicken with skin, very thin slices of cheese, and a moderate smear of mayo rather than thick slices of cheese and gobs of mayo. Light-S meals should be woven into the S mix for natural caloric changeup. Or you may choose to make an omelet with one egg and two egg whites and a couple tablespoons of part-skim mozzarella versus a Heavy-S omelet made with three full eggs, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and bacon. Do you see that wonderful variation you can have within S meals themselves? Don't limit yourself to one type; enjoy all three for the joy each brings.

Most people who lose weight steadily on the core plan of THM do not need to worry about what this term even means. Most of us with healthy metabolisms can handle fuel stacks here and there, so don't let this term wig you out. We've seen people lose more than a hundred pounds with Trim Healthy Mama and not even know what fuel stacking is. But if you are someone who struggles to lose weight (a stubborn loser), this subject may concern you. As we've pounded over and over again, the Trim Healthy Mama approach is not centered on numbers, but the general guideline is not to go over five grams of fat for Fuel Pull or E meals and not to go over ten grams of carbs for S or Fuel Pull meals. Fuel stacking occurs when different components of a meal pile up and those numbers are unknowingly surpassed.

Let's say you have an S dinner that includes a store-bought, low-carb wrap of six grams of carbs plus meat and veggies with fat. You had your dinner early, so just shy of two hours later you are hungry. You decide to have a Fuel Pull snack so as not to combine S and E fuels. You choose to have two Light Rye Wasa crackers with Laughing Cow Creamy Light Swiss cheese wedges (eleven to twelve carbs altogether). Or instead of the snack, you decide to have a Fuel Pull dessert straight after your dinner—you go for close to a full cup of Greek yogurt with one teaspoon of all-fruit jelly (about twelve carbs altogether). The meal plus snack or meal plus dessert puts you over that ten-gram carb number that is the guideline we usually aim to stay under. Actually, even if you have only a half cup of the yogurt, you're going a little over. Okay, please don't freak out! As mentioned, most
of us can handle going over the numbers in this way here and there, but others of us may not be able to. This is part of the reason we suggest sticking to a half cup of Greek yogurt when it is used as a dessert, or trying our Jigglegurt recipe in the “Sweet Bowls” chapter of the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
. That slashes the carbs and calories of Greek yogurt in half. We are in love with the taste and texture of that delightful treat and it is a helpful money-saver, too.

A similar fuel-stacking scenario can occur if you put two Fuel Pulls together that are already close to the top of the number limits. You can end up with a very light Crossover. Let's say you have a Fuel Pull pizza using a Joseph's pita as a crust for your main meal, then a full cup of Greek yogurt with one teaspoon of peanut butter as your dessert afterward. You were already close to Fuel Pull limits for fat and carbs with your pizza, since you used a small amount of cheese. The yogurt upped your carbs much closer to E territory, and then the teaspoon of peanut butter took you past the fat limits as well—voilà, you have a very light Crossover. Maybe not a bad thing, for many of us—but not as slimming as it could be.

You don't have to start counting obsessively; that's bondage. Just know that not all Fuel Pull foods are created equally. While 0% Greek yogurt and low-fat cottage cheese are considered Fuel Pulls, they have more carbs in the form of naturally occurring milk sugars than certain other Fuel Pulls. Fuel Pulls that have grains are in a similar boat, e.g., Wasa crackers.
Ultra Fuel Pulls are the ones that will not cause any fuel stacking. They contain negligible carbs and fat so fuel stacking has no chance of occurring. Ultra Fuel Pull desserts and snacks are the ones you want to use in close proximity to another meal if you have weight that is hard to shed.

Which are the Ultra Fuel Pulls? Dessert and snack recipes like Choco Chip Baby Frap, Thin Thicks, Gluccie or Glycine Glory puddings, Tummy Tucking Ice Cream, or Tummy Spa Ice Cream are all Ultra Fuel Pulls. Find those in the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
. Small amounts of lean meat, such as a few slices of lean deli turkey, could be “ultra” also as that is a snack that contains very little carbs or fat. If you are struggling with stubborn pounds, it simply makes sense to use more of these Ultra Fuel Pulls rather than dairy-based ones as desserts (tagged on to the end of a meal or as snacks close to another meal), especially in the evening (when your body burns less energy).

This doesn't mean you cannot use other moderately higher-carb Fuel Pull snacks and desserts in your THM plan. They are not banned for you. They are perfect as a full stand-alone snack three hours away from a meal. They often work best as afternoon snacks. Two Wasa crackers with Laughing Cow Creamy Light Swiss cheese wedges for an afternoon snack at three thirty
P.M.
? Sure! Add on Pearl's easy recipe for chocolate milk (found on our website). But Wasa crackers too close to another meal can be a problem. A full cup of Greek yogurt for an afternoon snack with berries as a FP snack? Sure! But don't do that right after your S meal if you have very challenging pounds to lose.

Once you get it, this is a very easy principle to apply. If you are freaking out with major informational overload right now, we must spray you with our magical memory-erase spray. There…
poof
, all this info has now been erased from your mind. You read it too early. Go forth and be a simple Trim Healthy Mama with our sisterly blessing. DO NOT COME BACK TO THIS CHAPTER until your newbie anxiety has lessened.