Losing body fat is tough; it is a hard fought journey and if you are doing it wrong by restricting yourself too much and lacking variety in your meals it is all the harder to achieve.
Despite this, the only way to avoid restricting yourself too much is to try and be creative and adaptable – because after all, when you’re trying to drop body fat there are certain foods that would be better avoided.
Two of those foods that are best avoided or eliminated to aid quicker fat loss results are pasta (spaghetti) and noodles.
Pasta and noodles are heavily starch based and provide a high amount of energy per small serving; they also provide minimal nutritional value in terms of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, antioxidants).
Where these two foods may be useful to an athlete or sports competitor, if you’re trying to improve health by dropping harmful body fat then they can be detrimental to progress due to the large amounts of energy they provide and the disruption caused to your blood sugar and insulin levels.
The problem we are left with when cutting these foods out is that they are a prominent feature in many staple recipes eaten by most households every night.
So if you’re no longer going to eat pasta and noodles then most of the foods you love can no longer be enjoyed, right?
Well, not exactly.
This is where the creativity and adaptability part comes in.
Let’s take Spaghetti Bolognese for example, if we remove the pasta from this dish we are left with meat (i.e. beef mince or turkey mince) and sauce. What once may have been a 600 – 700 kcal meal has now become a 300 – 400 kcal meal. That’s great, we have really cut down on the excessive energy but we are left feeling hard done by because something is now missing, but can it be replaced without adding back all that extra energy?
Introducing the Juliette peeler.
This awesome little ‘drag and slice’ device enables you to create spaghetti or noodles out of any vegetables you see fit. Courgettes (zucchini), squash, carrots, cucumber, etc. You just drag the device along the vegetable and BOOM, you have yourself a bowl of low energy spaghetti or noodles which are now packed with more nutrition and tastes miles better.
This allows you to reduce the energy but increase the nutritional value of the meal instantly. You can pick one of these useful little devices up off eBay for less than £5.00 – go and buy one and make your life much easier.
Let us know how you get on in the comments below.