Put aside the myths, products and gimmicks about weight loss and what you’ve got is the truth: it’s a matter of calories taken in and calories burned. For most people (yes, there are exceptions) if more than you’ve burned and you gain weight. Eat less and you lose weight. So the trick for many of us is to feel satisfied with the amount that we eat but keep the calorie count below what we’ve burned.
You can grow that! I know, because two years ago I lost 40 pounds on what I might call The Gardener’s Diet. Not only do gardeners burn calories when working in the landscape, but the real secret (that isn’t so secret) is eating homegrown vegetables.
Sure, I could claim that organically raised, homegrown veggies have some sort of weight loss woo-woo. But it isn’t pseudoscience, mumbo-jumbo or a profit-making product that makes The Gardener’s Diet work. It’s flavor.
When you pick beans, tomatoes, squash, peas, eggplant, kale or any other vegetable from your garden and cook it an hour or two later it has more flavor than you can imagine. You can roast any of the above without oil and they will be sweet. You can steam them and they will be delicious. Ditto for eating them raw.
And the beauty here is that you can eat a large helping of delicious, tasty vegetables, and consume very few calories.
Over the winter I gained 7 of those 40 pounds back but the summer is my window of opportunity to lose that again. I’ve already shed 3 pounds while joyfully savoring large helpings of garden produce.
Your vegetable garden contains the most delicious weight-loss plan on earth.
Steamed green beans, about 50 calories. Three large cherry tomatoes, about 15. Two tablespoons of hummus for dipping, 70 calories. So for less than 150 calories you have a flavorful, statisfying snack or lunch. Emphasis on the word flavorful.
Or shrink that as the case may be….
