| There are many non-hormonal birth control options available on the market
How can you change your lifestyle?
A few week ago, I wrote a post about changing my lifestyle (link), since losing weight is not just a diet. Especially if you want to keep the weight, which is everyone’s goal I guess?
Bad eating habits, not exercising enough, mentally not being in a good place, you recognising yourself already? These are probably one of the reasons you are not losing the amount weight you want to.
In ‘How I lost -10kg – Part 1‘ you will read the first steps I had to take to change my lifestyle. How I educated myself, what food I cut off first and what con’s or benefits were experienced during these steps (months).
| You can eat what you want, but you can’t combine everything on your plate.
In this post you will find my most life changing steps with the con’s and benefits!
4) Changing food pattern
3-12 months
The next step was life changing. Cutting of sugar and chocolate (as mentioned in the previous post) just wasn’t enough. Also the fact that I am a very difficult eater was a pain in the ass.
This was also the time that cookbooks were a real trend! Pascale Naessens, Sandra Bekkari, Jeroen Meus, everybody was making a cookbook. How do you even choose if this market is saturated? At home we chose for Pascale Naessens, mainly because the way she thought about food choices was different.
Pascale Naessens
She didn’t said cut this off or cut that off entirely. She did said ‘You can eat what you want, but you can’t combine everything together on your plate.’
This is something you obviously have to read with a pinch of salt. If you really want to lose weight, you can’t eat absolutely everything. The main focus is on healthy and fresh food, also you can eat less healthy food but with moderation. Don’t exaggerate, but that applies to almost everything you do in life.
One tip to maintain this lifestyle on long-term:
Every week you have space in your schedule to eat less healthy or very unhealthy food (again do not exaggerate or you will regret it the next week). The space you have for this food is only 20%, which means you can eat 20% of less healthy food in your entire week.
I made myself a little routine where once a week I ate a pancake, and every weekend I had ONE moment where I would eat whatever I wanted. But not too unhealthy, because if so, my stomach would respond to the bad food and I would be sick.
Your body adapts faster to the healthy lifestyle than you think. And it will give signals and say ‘NO, I do not want to process that kind of food’, even in the most horrible ways.
Want to know more? Keep reading because the best is yet to come!
Good combinations Bad combinations
The combination diet
In every book you buy from Pascale Naessens, you will find the ‘principal’ in the beginning of the book. Also in every book you can find different tips for this combination diet. One is more focused on fish, the other on gluten, etc.
The main subject on your plate is vegetables, which you can combine with everything you want: cheese, meat, carbs, fish, etc.
BUT you can’t combine the other things with each other. For example you can eat vegetables with meat, but not vegetables with meat and potatoes. Because potatoes are carbs, which are in a different bubble than meat.
Also fruit can’t be combined with vegetables or heavy cheese. So during your next cheese and wine evening you will either have to eat your light cheese with the fruits (grapes, etc.) or your cheese with the vegetables (salad with nuts).
If you have questions, you can always contact me here, on instagram, or leave a comment below!
Benefits:
– Learn new food or forgotten food
– Have varied food diet
– Improves the health
(more intake of vitamins, nutritions, etc. because of the varied food diet)
– You can eat what you want, just don’t combine what you want
– Bloating disappears
– IBS syndrome (Irritable Bowel syndrome) or for the dutch: PDS syndroom (Prikkelbare Darm Syndroom) disappears
– Lose weight (I lost 7-8 kg with this diet)
– Discovered my food intolerances
* Gluten intolerance
* Sensitive to sugar intake
* Histamine intolerance
Con’s:
– Find a new way of shopping in food stores
* Lot’s of fresh vegetables
* No easy wrapped food to heat in the microwave
Takes more time in the beginning!
– Invest time into cooking in the beginning
Making new founfood recipes take more time
– Find new food recipes
TIP: Start with hello fresh!
Their ingredient choices and amount of food leans to the combination diet.
They also have very healthy recipes. Every food product is the exact amount you need for your dish and it get’s delivered at your place. (So no problems with investing time in finding a new way to shop and search for new food recipes)
5) Hormonal issues
12 months – present
For the last 3 years I also struggled with hormonal issues. First off quitting the pill; my hormones needed to get normal again after 10 years of use!
For my female readers: don’t take the pill that long. This is NOT GOOD for your body. It took me over a year!!! to get my normal system back. There are many non-hormonal options available on the market; such as copper spiral (which I have now), condoms, natural birth control methods, etc.
Natural birth control instagram pages:
Vrouwenvruchtbaarheid Cycle_to_cycle
I’ve also struggled with other hormonal changes because of changes in the body which almost every women goes through (I won’t go in detail because this is a very private subject for me). Here I can’t give much advice about, because this is a normal evolution in the body of a women.
Benefits:
– 95% less headaches
– No more retain of moist ( except during time of the month)
– Extreme big boost for the libido
– Normal emotional feelings return as in; sometimes being really happy or really sad.
The hormonal anti-conception gave me are more stagnate feeling in general.
– Feeling yourself again
Con’s:
– High risk of pregnancy if you don’t use any type of birth control (condom, Sensi, coper spiral, etc.)
6) Food intolerance
8 months – present
The final element that helped me with the bloating, holding water and having IBS/PDS problems are my food intolerances.
What is a food intolerance?
A food intolerance is not equal to a food allergy, but they have a certain amount of equal symptoms.
As a food allergy can be life threatening (a food intolerance is not), it is also an abnormal response of the immune system to a particular substance in a food ( food intolerance does not originate from the immune system).
Food intolerances or sensitivities can be very problematic for those experiencing it. Up to 20% of the global population are having food intolerances.*
Healthline Media: ‘The 8 most common food intolerances‘.
| Photo credit: Photos & Food Blog on Visual hunt |
Symptoms:
- Bloating
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- Eczema
- Diarrhea
- Abdominal pain This is extreme when I eat pizza or lasagne. It feels like I’m in labour and can’t even move!
- Nausea
- Etc.
My intolerances:
– Histamine intolerance (more info about my natural medication here)
– Gluten intolerance (I eat gluten at least once a week so that I won’t have an extreme reaction when I do eat it)
– Sensitive to sugar intake (When this is too high I get cramps, mood swings, bloating, acne, eczema…)
Benefits:
– My symptoms are completely gone
– No more retain of moisture
Con’s:
– I have to skip the chocolate
– I can’t eat the most delicious food on earth: pizza, pasta, lasagna, macaroni, tomatoes, banana’s, chocolate, nuts, cheese… (But with my natural medication I can in moderation.)
– I can’t drink fermented drinks such as beers. Yes, woman drink beer!
Final note
Food is a big part of losing weight, but it’s not the only thing you have to change in your lifestyle.
Part 3 will tell you more about the final step, which is essential to combine with a healthy food lifestyle.
Want to know when part 3 will be published?
SUBSCRIBE in the right kolom for ‘blog’ ——————->
and the post link will be send to your mailbox
*FOD Volksgezondheid (2016). Geraadpleegd op 01/12/2020, van https://www.health.belgium.be/nl/voeding/voedselveiligheid/voedingsallergien-intoleranties/wat-een-voedingsallergie-intolerantie
*Healthline Media (2020). Geraadpleegd op 01/12/2020, van https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/common-food-intolerances
