Author: Healthi Coach, Stefanie Wohlgemuth
Zero BITE foods are amazing. A huge stressor in any diet is figuring out what and how much you can eat. Often, we end diets because they're too time consuming or restrictive. Zero BITE foods help avoid these pitfalls, but can create new ones.
Don't get me wrong, I love 0 BITE foods and am on the plan with the most amount of them! They're great tools when you get started. You know you can always eat something. They're great to bulk up meals. So what could possibly be an issue?
There are actually two. We are all different so we can end up going towards each extreme. One is:
Eating too much of the zero BITE foods.
Especially on the Better Balance plan, where you can build whole meals and even days on only 0 BITE foods. But 0 BITE doesn't mean 0 calorie! These foods still add up. Some tips to avoid overdoing 0 BITE foods are to still track them, which also includes measuring and weighing, and to stick to portion sizes. That takes a whole lot of the ease and fun out of them but if you struggle with losing weight and consume a lot, this might be a way to help you get back to losing weight.
Another helpful way to curb the amount is to always add something with BITE value to your 0 BITE foods. Like measuring, this will also help you not go overboard.
And then there are people like me. People who:
Love the idea of zero BITE foods but don't utilize them fully.
For the weight loss system to work, a certain amount of 0 BITE foods are calculated into your daily plan. If you don't eat enough 0 BITE foods you might end up not meeting your food goal without knowing it. Under-eating can have serious consequences for your weight loss (and health). Your body needs a certain amount of nutrition to function so if you don't give it enough it will panic and slow down your metabolism. That means you will burn less calories and it also means you will stop losing weight.
Many people find out that's what is stopping their weight loss when they add calories as a secondary metric. Often, they have consumed all of their BITES but still have calories left...that's because those are set aside for 0 BITE foods. As weird as it may sound: you'll need to eat more to lose weight again.
Hopefully these tips will help you avoid some of the pitfalls of 0 BITE foods so you can enjoy them and their benefits.
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