The Complete Plate. Lauren Klukas
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on my new journey. Seeing the transformation of my body over a year, purely through nutrition, was amazing. And it was encouraging to know that, thanks to a conscientious meal plan, I still had control over my body.
Exercise and Weight Loss
While exercise is necessary for weight maintenance and several important physiological adaptations (like improved cardiovascular and pulmonary health), it is not key for weight loss.1 Current literature suggests that aerobic training must be frequent and extremely high in intensity for significant weight loss to occur.2 Nutrition is a fundamental factor in weight loss and one variable in my life
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that I can control. (See more on Nutrition on page 16.)
I would never recommend a sedentary lifestyle or suggest someone give up their exercise routine, but a large portion of the population is not meeting the minimum guidelines of physical activity to receive any health benefits. Studies support that current minimum physical activity guide-lines for adults—two and a half hours of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity per week—is sufficient for reducing the risk of chronic diseases.3 However, in the United States, less than 5 percent of adults get 30 minutes of physical activity a day4 and only one in three adults get the recommended amount of physical activity each week.5
While campaigns promoting a healthy lifestyle continue to find more efficient and effective ways to encourage the long-term adoption of physical activity, a balanced meal plan—including whole foods with proper micro- and macro-nutrient composition—can also provide positive health benefits and prevention of chronic diseases. (See more on Micro- and Macronutrients, starting on page 16.)
The Beautiful Paradox of Adversity
ARVC has redefined my life in a way that many would consider calamitous, but there is a beautiful paradox with adversity. The painful refining process of trials and tribulations can lead to profound personal growth and create opportunities that never would have emerged otherwise. Weight loss is only
a small chapter of this story. Weight loss and a particular body image are not, by any means, a reflection of successfully establishing a healthy lifestyle. My journey has simply highlighted the importance of meal planning, nutrition, and cooking in the attaining of food wellness and has led to the design and implementation of a successful lifestyle for weight management that works with my sedentary life.
The Mission
My mission for The Complete Plate is to redefine people’s understanding of nutrition. Life would be easier if food’s only purpose was to nourish our bodies. Food is at the center of our celebrations, times of fellowship, religious ceremonies, and cultural festivities. The relationship between joy and food has been fused together since the beginning of time, and that is why to establish sustainable healthy eating habits we need to redis-cover joy in eating and abandon the mind-set of good foods versus bad foods (the mentality of eat this, not that). For healthy eating to be sustainable, it needs to be more than chicken, quinoa, and vegetables for the rest of your life. I don’t want to bully anyone into eating healthily. I want to encourage critical thinking and provide a resource that presents sound nutritional information so anyone can develop healthy and positive associations with food. My hope is that The Complete Plate will be a valuable tool in this transi-tion to a sustainable, healthy new lifestyle. Now let’s get cooking!
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Weight maintenance, and weight loss, can be achieved through a balanced diet made up of ingredients that come together to meet both nutritional and caloric demands. In the process of creating a perfectly balanced daily diet, I quickly discovered that compiling this information involved a significant amount of time, research, energy, and patience. I wondered if there was a tool or book to help people like myself map everything out. Surprisingly, there wasn’t. And this is how the idea for The Complete Plate was conceived.
What Is The Complete Plate?
The Complete Plate attempts to bridge the gap between nutrition and flavor. It provides 30 daily meal plans for caloric requirements of 1500, 2000, and 2500 calories per day. Each day is perfectly balanced to provide 100% of your micro- and macronutrient needs, based on current Dietary Reference Intake (dri) values.
How It Works
The Complete Plate is not a program or a diet. It is a lifestyle made up of three components: nutrition, meal planning, and cooking. Together, these three elements create a union of food wellness and healthy eating habits.
the basics
Food wellness is a term we created to describe the ideal state for making healthy eating habits a part of your busy day-to-day life. The hope is that when food wellness is achieved, your mind and body will be able to perform at peak performance. But if one of the three components is missing, it is almost impossible to establish sustainable healthy eating habits and achieve food wellness.
Nutrition is the fuel you put into your body, and it impacts performance and mood. With the overwhelming amount of unscientifically based nutrition information available, it can be difficult to discern what is true and what is trendy. This is why having insight into sound nutritional information is a key foundation for obtaining food wellness.
Organized meal planning is essential for successfully executing and maintaining healthy eating habits. Meal planning reduces stress, saves money, and helps prevent consuming calorie-dense convenience foods.
Cooking your meals helps foster healthy eating habits. You may be incredibly organized and have immense nutritional insight, but you need to get all that wonderful knowledge onto a plate.
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What Can I Eat?
I’m often asked, “What foods do I need to eliminate on this program?” The answer is simple: none! This book is NOT a program, it is a lifestyle. One that does not label foods as good or as bad. Some recipes will include ingredients such as bacon, bread, and cheese; The Complete Plate does not demonize whole nutrients like fat or sugar. Nutrients work best in a food ecosystem. Eliminating certain foods, or single ingredients, prevents whole foods from doing their job. The Complete Plate promotes a balanced diet that does not deprive the user of specific foods.
Why It Works
This approach to eating works because it is not revolutionary—wait, what?! We have been conditioned to believe that a diet must be extreme, radical, and sexy in order for it to work. We do not give our bodies enough credit! Sure, there are situations that warrant a more creative approach, but for the general healthy population, our bodies are more than capable of handling the food we put into it within moderation. This plan is going back to the basics. It is not overcomplicating science, it is rooted in context and solid research, and it is fostering healthy relationships with food.
While other programs are prohibitive or eliminatory, The Complete Plate encourages balanced eating, which leads to optimal nutrition and satiation. And because you are eating a variety of foods, including the occasional treat, you never feel the need to cheat. This way of eating
celebrates delicious and healthy food consumed in moderation.
Best of all, The Complete Plate works because it’s sustainable. Since each meal plan is perfectly balanced for your dri values, you don’t have to follow the meal plans in order. If you are still becoming comfortable in the kitchen, keep it simple by choosing a few of your favorite meal plans and enjoy them over and over again. If variety is your spice of life, feel free to choose a different plan for every day of the week. With this book, I want you to feel