People often say, “you are what you eat,” and I am a testament to the truth of that statement. When you eat junk, your body turns into junk. But when you eat healthy, nutritious food, your body responds by returning to its natural, healthy, lean state.

I struggled with my weight a lot for most of my life, and tried over and over to lose weight but I never saw the results that I needed to truly succeed with weight loss until I made a transition to a healthy diet.

Like so many I thought that the answer was in cutting calories, but soon found how horrible focusing on restriction alone can be, for so many reasons.

First of all, when I tried to cut calories I was rarely ever able to stick to it because of constant hunger, which I didn’t know at the time was not needed to lose weight.

But when I did cut calories for long enough to lose weight, I was hungry all of the time, and I wasn’t left with much muscle when I reached my “goal”. Instead of getting lean I just kind of got small. Since it wasn’t sustainable to be so hungry and deprived of nutrients, there was nothing to do but gain the weight back once I returned to my normal way of eating.

The sad thing is that in our modern society the normal way of living is to eat a poor diet filled with calories and chemicals but containing very little healthy and essential nutrients.

Drinking sugary drinks/ not drinking plain water is just as much a part of the picture as solid food is.

As is fairly common in people who become obese… I believe my diet was worse than the normal person’s junky diet. Not only did I eat more bad food, but since literally before I could remember I was a super picky eater, and never ate fruits, vegetables, or anything that freaked me out which coincidentally was most things that were natural and didn’t come in a package.

I searched endlessly for answers to weight loss online, and most of what I came across wasn’t good, healthy advice. But when I finally learned how eating a healthy diet causes sustainable weight loss, although I was thrilled to have a solution at hand, it wasn’t quite as easy as I thought it would be.

Changing your diet is still really hard even when you know how much of a difference it will make.

On top of the normal struggle of transitioning to a healthy diet, my fear of healthy foods made it even more difficult for me to improve myself, and I wasn’t able to lose the weight I wanted for years to come.

The foods that made me fat

The foods that made me GAIN weight are an important part of my transformation story just like healthy foods… because they give a clear reference point to show the complete change my diet went through, and will show you that immense change is possible, even if your diet is horrible and you are addicted to unhealthy foods.

Unhealthy foods that will make you gain weight are also important to observe, even though we plan to leave them behind… because the foods that make you gain weight are half of the full picture that explains the true power of clean eating for weight loss.

Seeing the huge difference between foods that make you fat and the foods that make you slim… can show just how powerful making a healthy trade can be, and how many calories can be cut from your daily habits by eating MORE healthy foods.

In my early twenties my diet got worse and worse, and I ended up gaining 10 pounds per year for 8 years, adding up to 80 pounds… and I lost all of the muscle I had worked hard to gain in high school.

I had a full-time job stacking boxes in warehouse freezer, and all I did was drink soda and eat junk food for my whole shift.

I did the same thing during the day going from class to class in college… buying soda, candy, and chips every chance I had… and eating pizza with a mango energy drink for lunch every day (accompanied by a package of chips).

In my mid-twenties when I got a stable job, I started buying massive amounts of unhealthy food from the grocery store in addition to endless fast food trips.

Almost nothing that I used to buy from the grocery store is a part of my life now, but looking back I can still see nearly every item I used to buy.

Going into the store I would pass straight through the produce section like I didn’t belong, and head straight to the soda. I’d buy enough to have multiple per day for weeks to come.

I’d also buy sweet tea, which I loved to eat with potato chips and cheese snacks.

Vanilla cookies, lemon cookies, cinnamon graham crackers, strawberry Swiss rolls, honey buns, these were all things that I had to have all of the time.

Cold sugary snacks were important too… I always had orange creamsicles and ice cream for homemade milk shakes as well.

Even though these were “snacks”, the reality is that these types of foods were a huge portion of my diet.

As far as “real foods” go, what I lived off of all came from a package, a box, or a drive thru. Cheese/pasta mixes, ramen noodles, frozen turkey and lasagna dinners, frozen pizzas, pizza rolls, popcorn chicken… my basket was overflowing with these things.

Around holidays I would get excited because my favorite frozen cookie dough would be at the store, and also I’d be able to pick up 2 dozen holiday cookies from the bakery downtown.

The bread and meat I bought were the cheapest possible… white bread, and high-fat ground beef. Even worse were the breakfast sausages that I mixed with so many things even though it gave me heart burn.

Above all I used to love sugared cereals. It was like I could never get enough.

But most of that stuff was just the foods I ate from the store. I was also super addicted to fast food, pizza, and take-out.

Fast food wasn’t just occasional for me, it was a part of my daily routine. If there was a day I didn’t get fast food it was because I bought enough for left-overs the day before.

Spicy chicken sandwiches with a milkshake were one of my top favorites, and was another meal that I couldn’t stop eating even though it hurt my stomach and was ruining my health.

Giant roast beef sandwiches… take-out spaghetti with sausage sandwiches (+ chips/soda/snack cake on the side), always ordering pizza… and when I went to get sesame chicken at the place near my job every other day, I would walk in and the girl at the counter would say, “hey it’s soda boy!”

There was a time where I thought I would never change my habits, even when I knew it was the key to regaining my health and living life with a healthy body.

But one day making a change became very important to me, and I finally made a transition to a healthy diet, which led to me losing 80 pounds, and continues to be a natural part of my life that keeps me fit and healthy.

What I ate to lose weight

Simply listing out healthy foods makes things seems so simple. Transitioning to a healthy diet, bringing healthy food into my life and letting go of the unhealthy ones… wasn’t an easy thing and it didn’t happen in a day.

Looking back, there was a time where I never would have thought that healthy food would have become such an important part of my life that I look forward to instead of dreading.

I don’t think I could possibly list ALL the foods I ate to lose weight because the healthy options are endless once you open yourself to it… I have only skimmed the surface of the amazing variety of super healthy foods in this world.

I made changes gradually which helped me to get used to my diet and to stay on track, and instead of focusing on cutting things out of my diet I simple ate more and more healthy food, which replaced the unhealthy food without always having to struggle with cravings and hunger.

I started losing weight by eating one healthy meal per day minimum as a general rule, but that didn’t mean that I limited myself to only that, and it also didn’t mean that I would give up and start over if I missed a healthy meal.

Here is what I ate to lose weight, and how I changed my eating habits one step at a time.

Whole foods

“Whole” foods are the ideal choice for weight loss. Whole foods are foods that are in their most natural, unmodified state, just as they were when they grew from the earth. They are the best foods that will make you lose weight for several reasons.

Foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, brown rice, and even lean, non-ground meat, these are all examples of whole foods, which offer tons of nutrition but digest slowly do not contain unnecessary excess calories.

These healthy foods satisfy your cravings and hunger without spiking your insulin or giving a surplus of calories, which is why eating clean will help you lose weight without needing to be hungry, count calories, or restrict much needed nutrients.

When you transition to a highly nutritious diet of natural foods, you put your body into a natural and stress-free calorie deficit. Junk food is dense in calories and lacking nutrition, which requires overeating to be satisfied… where healthy food, especially whole foods, are dense in nutrition and not heavy in calories, and as a bonus digest slowly over time, giving needed energy rather than being stored as fat.

Brown rice and shredded chicken was my first go-to weight loss meal that started helping me burn fat right away. Brown rice and chicken is a very popular go-to meal for people who are losing weight.

Chicken is a very healthy, high-protein source that when boiled/baked/grilled/broiled, has very little saturated fat. Brown rice takes up lots of room in your belly without many calories, and unlike white rice which has been stripped of its outer bran layer, brown rice has a decent amount of protein and fiber, and it digests slowly over time. These two foods combined make a great, familiar, tasty, and fairly well-balanced meal that will fill you up without spiking your insulin or adding tons of calories… which makes the perfect condition for burning fat.

Every day, I would eat a BIG plate of chicken and brown rice, which in turn replaced some of the other junk and fast food that I normally ate, which happened without me having to actively think about cutting out the bad foods.

I also like to make burritos with rice and chicken, with a heart healthy tortilla or pita bread made of whole wheat, flax, and oat bran.

After a while instead of boiling the chicken and shredding it, I started to bake it with lemon seasoning and dice it, which is so delicious that it makes me feel like I am cheating on my diet.

Soon enough I started adding other healthy foods. I started eating dry-roasted, unsalted peanuts in place of packages of chips, and scrambled eggs for a super low-calorie/high-protein boost in the morning.

Something that made transitioning to a healthy diet even harder for me, was that I have always been a really picky eater, and I NEVER ate fruits or vegetables when I grew up. I used to sit for hours at the dinner table determined not to eat my fruits and veggies, which ultimately led to me not eating my first piece of fruit until I was in my mid-twenties.

I knew that I needed to expand my diet to get the results I wanted and to round out my healthy diet, and so I went to the store to buy some fruit… and months later I finally broke through (the surface) of my fear of vegetables as well.

I started eating an apple every day, and also got in the habit of eating bananas as often as I could keep them ripe. Berries were also something I bought more and more of, especially when I discovered that frozen berries are cheaper and great for smoothies, which when I got just right… replaced my milkshake habit.

Along with smoothies came healthy yogurt, and hemp seed hearts which are a powerhouse for healthy fat and protein. The fat from the hemp seed makes smoothies creamy just like ice cream… which your tongue tells your brain to go crazy for.

Eventually I finally bought some vegetables and started eating with reluctance because of my life-long fear of them… but vegetables are by far the best foods that make you lose weight due to how super low in calories they are, how super nutritious they are, and how filling they are all at the same time.

So, I bought a bag of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots, put some olive oil on them, threw it in the oven… and presto!

My very first veggies since… well, ever.

I drink kale juice regularly as well, I prefer it by itself rather than mixing other flavors with it. To me it tastes a bit like mint if the leaves have been frozen.

Healthy trades

Although the most important and most effective weight loss foods are whole, unprocessed, unmodified foods that grew right from the earth, there are also lots foods available on the shelf that are nutritious and helpful for weight loss but have still been slightly modified.

These types of foods are actually very important, because they are a great way to transition to a healthy diet, and also give you a way to eat healthy while still living a normal life.

I like to call these “healthy trades” as they represent healthy versions of some well-like packaged foods.

Many of the things you like have very similar healthy versions that taste just the same or better, but are far healthier than their evil counterpart.

It’s important to note that I am not talking about foods that say “non-fat”, or “reduced sugar” … which miss the essential point of healthy weight loss, which is that the “ingredients” should be healthy in themselves. These foods that claim to have less fat or sugar added are usually compensated with some other bad ingredient, and don’t really help your cause.

These are the foods that were so popular around the 1990’s that stained the reputation of healthy foods for decades to come, because they taste like crap… being some desperate attempt for corporations to make an unhealthy product seem healthy with numbers and figures.

But foods that are all natural, unrefined, and minimally modified can make great options for healthy foods. When you look closely these foods are all over the store, some more true to their name than others but the big idea is not to be perfect, it’s to make a significant change that will start giving you results.

I’ll be honest it’s likely that these foods will cost a little more, but not only are the rewards of getting in shape worth just about anything… but with spending a bit more on healthy food you’ll spend lots less on junk food so it balances out.

When you are looking for these types of foods, look at the ingredients first. You will be surprised that sitting right next to the product you normally buy (yogurt, cereal, bread, peanut butter) with lots of added sugars, unnatural fats, and fructose sweeteners, is an all-natural version with less/no added artificial ingredients, and fewer calories.

These healthy trades help you burn fat in the same way whole foods do… by giving you energy and satisfaction while keeping your calories and insulin levels low (which leaves your body in fat burning mode).

I love cereal and can never seem to get enough of it. It made a huge difference when I went from eating sugary cereals that are puffed up with air, have tons of bad, high-calorie, insulin spiking chemicals, and virtually no beneficial nutrients… to eating healthier cereal with more substance and nutrition, with a much better ratio of good to bad nutrients (less sugar, more protein and healthy fat).

I don’t buy normal loaves of bread anymore as a prefer healthy flat-breads, but back when I was making healthy changes I traded each bread product I bought with whole wheat versions, and even got all-natural versions of peanut butter and jelly which have less than half the bad stuff.

It’s all about making a significant change from your previous habits, and setting a pace that you can stick with. Always make improvements, but never try to be perfect.

Today I rely more heavily on whole foods, and some of the healthy trades that I made while I was still in the middle of my journey, I don’t eat anymore because I am always improving my habits.

During the time that I was still buying ground beef I made sure it was super lean, which makes a huge difference as the fat in beef and most meats besides fish are not the healthy type.

As my diet continues to expand and improve, I am always discovering new healthy foods, flavors, and mixtures that I like. Although I believe in living your life and embracing imperfection, it’s important that I continue to improve my eating habits because doing so makes me leaner and leaner, and makes me feel better and better about myself.

If you want to start getting rid of your extra weight and feel better and better about yourself, try the 8-week weight loss challenge. It will help you add healthy foods into your habits one step at a time, at a pace you can stick with consistently, so you can reach you ultimate, long-term goals.

Signup up below for your free PDF copy or find out more about the course!

To read more about my weight loss journey and lots more before and after pictures, read my full weight loss story.