The first step to eating healthy is to understand what ‘healthy’ means. Being healthy can be interpreted in many different ways. The word HEALTHY if looked up in the dictionary is stated as: 1. the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor & 2. soundness of body or mind; freedom from disease or ailment. 

As  you see here the term HEALTHY does not even specify food. So we can conclude from this that healthy meals could mean creating meals with food that bring about a general condition of the body & mind that is free from disease or ailment, yes? 

With that being said let us define the term WHOLE FOOD. If you look this up in the dictionary it states; 1. food with little or no refining or processing and containing no artificial additives or preservatives; natural or organic food. From this definition we can conclude that WHOLE FOOD is food that is not processed. One way I like to define this is food that is coming from the ground or has a mother. It is not created in a factory or made by man. 

I want to define one more word for you so that you are not left questioning. Let’s define the term DIET 1. a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease.

And while we are at it here is the definition of DIETING: 1. to regulate the food of, especially in order to improve the physical condition.

Now that we have those definitions we can come to an answer for “will eating healthy help you lose weight?” Eating a diet(a selection of food to improve your condition) that is rich in whole foods is going to help you improve your health and limit disease. In order to lose weight you need to eat less food than what you burn. Also know as a caloric deficit.

A healthy diet is part of losing weight but it is not the entire picture. The simple science of weight loss is calories in vs calories out. You must be eating less than what you burn & fueling with enough of the right micro-nutrients and macro-nutriets. 

 I want to be clear here and express that a ‘diet’ or ‘dieting’ does not in any way shape or form say that you need to deprive yourself of things or limit certain food groups. Dieting is simply a process of regulating your food intake (knowing how much of what) to eat in order to improve your physical condition so that you can become healthy. 

Are you following me here?

OK great! Let’s get the part about the Meals in 30 minutes or less. 

Depending on what your goal is for wanting to eat healthy whole foods you will first need to figure out how much of what macronutrient to eat. The book Thinner Leaner Stronger by Micheal Matthews is a great place to start. He also has free resources on his website for you to enter your information in so you can get a free meal plan and workouts etc. His book will provide the science behind the method and you know here at the Maternal Method it’s all about the science! This macro calculator is the best for figuring out you macronutrient needs.