Balance & Moderation

Balance and moderation are key to solving many issues we are having today in life. One of the main issues many people are struggling with are healthy diets. I was inspired by this diet by the teaching of everyday habits of the prophet Mohamed 'peace be upon him'

Let me give you a bit of background about myslef: I struggled with being overweight for more than a few years, I love food & I was on a vicious cycle of overeating & eating unhelthy food. The challenge is when you are overweight, it's very hard to break that cycle unless you do something dramatic. I was also not able to loose weight by exercising because my knee is injured & being overweight could aggravate it even more. So, I started analysing my eating habits & came up with the balance & moderation diet.

I will try to explain in this blog how I used balance and moderation to lose 55 pounds. The following are some of the fundamental concepts I used to make this work:

- I knew that I will have to loose this weight slowly in order to loose it forever; I lost 55 pounds in about 1 year.
- In order to achieve balance, I had to eliminate (as much as possible) processed foods from my diet (for example: sugar added juice, sweets, white bread...). Going natural is the best approach to achieve balance. If you look at nature, it's so balanced.
- Eat slower; this forces you not to over eat; it takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that you are full.
- Eat a balanced diet; which means eat a little bit of everything; do not rule any food out, your body needs a large variety, but, in moderation.
- Drink less (1/3 of your meal for drink, 1/3 for food, and 1/3 empty)
- Avoid processed foods or sugar added food; if you want any have some but in moderation.
- Eat more fruits & whole grains.
- Never fill your stomach 100%, always leave room to breathe.
- Use more olive oil in your diet
- Eat more dates (7 dates per day is ideal)
- Eat some fruit 15-20 minutes before your meal
- Don't starve yourself; if you are hungry, get something to eat (based on healthy guidelines above)
- Replace your food with organic alternative as much as possible