We talk to a lot of people that say they struggle with food because of the way they grew up. Oftentimes “I grew up eating New Mexican or Mexican Food”. Well Yes in a way this is true but These types of foods aren’t unhealthy, sometimes it’s just the way they are prepared or what we put together.
Here’s a few examples:
- Fried Foods– Yes a lot of foods are fried when it comes to mexican food. A lot of the time in vegetable oil. Just by changing the type of oil we use can really improve the quality of our foods. We recommend 3 oils to cook with. Avocado oil, Olive oil, or coconut oil.
- Too many carbs– Yes there are delicious carbs when it comes to these foods. Beans, rice, tortillas, corn tortillas, sopapillas, etc…. It’s not that these are all bad, it’s just we eat too many carbs in one sitting. For example, let’s take a common “burrito plate”. Well of course we have the burrito, usually filled with some type of meat and/or beans. We then have a side of rice maybe with more beans on the side. Of course comes the sopapilla after the meal and we may put a little honey on it. Then we wash it down with a soda. Oh and don’t forget the chips and salsa that we started with.
So just in that meal we have 7 different types of carbs (tortilla, beans, rice, sopapilla, honey, soda, chips) and can easily consume well over 100g of carbs within that meal.
The normal serving size for carbohydrates is around 20-35g of carbs which could be 1 tortilla, or 1 side of beans, ¾ cup of rice, 1 sopapilla (no honey).
It’s not that we can’t eat all of these, we just either need to choose which one we want or eat very small portions of each. (And please, please just cut out the soda. Even diet soda. No bueno)
When creating meals we have our nutrition clients practice using the plate method. This means choosing a 9 inch plate. Fill half up with veggies, a quarter up with protein, and the other quarter with carbs. By sticking to this we will easily stay with our limits.
If you would like more info on the “Plate Method” just shoot us an email.
fire.icenf@gmail.com
Coach Marcel
