It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways (27 page)

• Create each meal around your protein source.
  
• Each meal should include one to two palm-size servings of protein.
  
• As often as possible, choose high-quality meat, seafood, and eggs.
  

We build each meal around protein in part because that’s how we grocery shop, prioritizing high-quality protein sources in our budget. But there are more science-y reasons for building each meal around your high-quality animal protein source.

First, as we’ve learned, protein is highly satiating and helps us
stay
full until our next meal. In addition, making protein the main event ensures that we’ll get enough protein over the course of our day. This is critical when you’re eating only three times a day. Skipping protein at one meal means you’ll have to overload at your other meals to keep intake adequate, which can be difficult. Finally, eating protein with each and every meal helps to stabilize blood sugar levels (via glucagon) in the absence of large amounts of insulin-promoting foods.

Which, of course, you don’t eat anymore. Good for you!

Now, we know you have questions about this, because “palm-size” is still too general for most people. So we’ll give you some additional guidelines, but also caution you not to get too caught up in analyzing your portions. The
exact
portion size doesn’t really matter, because you’ll be adjusting it based on the signals your body sends you.

The bulk (thickest part) of your protein source should be roughly the same size as the palm of your hand. If you’ve got some thinner parts hanging over (like with salmon, or a chicken breast), don’t sweat it.

For whole eggs, a meal-size portion is the number of eggs you can hold in one hand. This is usually between three and five. (If Dallas is
very
hungry, he can hold six.) And to all of you ladies who would respond to our breakfast inquiry by demurely responding, “Oh, I had my egg this morning,” we have one thing to say.

Adequate protein is the key to this whole plan. And if there’s one meal at which you can afford to overindulge, it’s breakfast. So err on the side of generous, please. Also, yes, you’re eating the whole egg. We’ve already talked about this. Plus, half the protein is in the yolk, so it’s darn hard to get enough protein if you’re eating only the whites.

For deli meat, stack slices to approximately the thickness of your palm. For oddly-shaped protein (tuna fish, shrimp, scallops, etc.) simply do your best to estimate a palm-size portion. Again, don’t sweat the exact portion size. We don’t want to see anyone playing shrimp-Tetris on his palm. That is wholly unnecessary, and kind of gross.

Now, our guidelines say “one to two palm-size servings.” So how do you know whether you’re a one-palm or two-palm kind of person? Go by your
size
and your
activity levels
.

If you’re big, try two palms. If you’re small, try one palm. (If you don’t know whether you’re big or small, we can’t help you.)

If you’re very active, either with your job (construction worker, landscaper, firefighter) or with your sport or exercise routine, try two palms. If you’re less active, try one palm.

Also, for the record, these are not your only options. You’ve also got 1.25 palms, 1.5 palms, 1.942 palms, and every possibility in between.

This should not be overwhelming. You all have palms. Choose your protein, look at your meat, look at your palm, call it good.

• Fill the rest of your plate with vegetables.
  

Um, that’s it. We could pretty much end this section right here. Put your protein on the plate, and fill the rest with vegetables. How easy is that?

Of course, you have some questions.

First, we do mean
fill
your plate. Because seven leaves of spinach don’t really provide you with the carbohydrate or the micronutrients you need to be healthy. And don’t try arranging the meat on your plate so it takes up as much space as possible, either. (What are you, twelve?) Don’t worry, by the time we’re done, you’ll like certain vegetables so much that you’ll gladly make room for them. Really.

That having been said, we’re not the Veggie Police, insisting that you eat your weight in leafy greens every day. And we also know that some days you won’t even
have
a plate—like if you’re eating a bowl of curry or stew, in which the veggies are already mixed right into the meal. We’re just encouraging you to do your best to eat a healthy amount of vegetables with each of your three meals. That’s all—just do your best.

To help with variety, we like to include at least two vegetables with each meal—sometimes more. An entire plate full of green beans can feel pretty boring, and including a variety of veggies per meal helps to maximize nutrients too.

Finally, there are vegetables that are both nutrient-dense and carbohydrate-dense. You don’t have to be afraid of sweet potato, beets, butternut squash, acorn squash, parsnips, or pumpkin just because they contain carbohydrates. We assure you, no one ever made herself diabetic by overeating beets or pumpkin.
^*
In fact, if you’re healthy and active, you’ll need to make a point of eating some of these carb-dense vegetables on a regular basis to support your activity levels.

If you’re overweight and insulin resistant, you don’t want to fill your whole plate with mashed sweet potato, because your metabolism isn’t good at managing energy. In this case, include the more carb-dense veggies in smaller portions and fill in the rest with leafy greens or other fibrous vegetables.

• Start with one to two servings of fruit a day.
  
• A serving is about the size of a fist.
  

Feel free to add some fruit either with your meals or immediately after. Remember, fruit should not take the place of vegetables during meals! However, adding fruit to meals, or enjoying a sweet treat after a meal, is a great way to take advantage of nature’s nutritious sweetness.

We do have some caveats with fruit, however, going back to that healthy psychological response and your hormones. These caveats can mostly be described in two words:

We know that
sounds
really healthy. Unfortunately, waking up in the morning and blending large amounts of fruit into a breakfast smoothie is not a good idea, for a few reasons.

First,
liquid foods
, while convenient, don’t promote the same satiety response as eating real food. Which means your fruit smoothie isn’t as satiating as the eggs, spinach, and avocado you’d have to chew and swallow. A smoothie is likely to fill you up short-term, but leave you hungry between meals,
especially
if you drink it all by itself. In addition, eating mostly fruit in the morning means you’ll have to make up for the missed nutrients and calories from protein and fat in your other meals, leaving you stuffed if you manage to jam it all in, or generally underfed if you simply can’t eat that much in one sitting.

In addition, it’s better to eat smaller servings of fruit throughout the day than a large amount in one sitting. Remember, fructose (one of the sugars found in fruit) must be processed by your liver. Large amounts of fruit in one sitting can put a burden on your liver, especially if you’re still working through insulin resistance or obesity. Research has shown that people who are insulin resistant and obese are
more sensitive to fructose,
so large amounts in one sitting is a very bad idea for that population—but that doesn’t make it a great idea for the rest of us, either.

Finally, from our perspective, when clients eat a bunch of sugar first thing in the morning, they are far more likely to experience volatile energy swings, sugar cravings, and abnormal levels of hunger throughout the rest of their day. So think about Meal 1 as setting the tone for the rest of your day, both physically and psychologically. If the first thing you taste when you wake up is sugar, it may be hard to shake that taste, and any subsequent cravings. But if your first meal is a nutritious and satiating combination of protein, healthy fats, and vegetables (with perhaps a little fruit thrown in for flavor), you start your day off with steady, long-lasting energy, nutrients, and the feeling of satisfaction and fullness that comes from a complete meal.

That sounds way smarter to us too.

Now, we’re not saying you can’t have any fruit at breakfast. We’re just saying don’t drink it, and don’t eat it all by itself. One of our favorite breakfast creations is an egg scramble with poached peaches, spinach, fresh basil, and chopped pecans—a dense protein, some healthy fat from the cooking oil and pecans, and just the right amount of natural sweetness from the peaches. Fruit and eggs are a surprisingly delicious combination.

Just don’t forget your veggies.

Finally, as we’ve already mentioned, if you find yourself reaching for fruit after every single meal, satisfying those leftover cravings for dessert, you may want to stop and think. Remember, addressing your
habits
is the most important factor in making sustainable healthy eating changes—and dessert just might be one of those habits you’d be better off shaking.