I’ve written about THM before. Since December 2015, I’ve been on this eating plan. And I love it. People often claim that it’s too complicated, but I’ve learned to keep Trim Healthy Mama simple and to make it work for me… while cooking for a family of 9. Here are some tips.
Trim Healthy Mama Simple
At its heart, Trim Healthy Mama only has three main simple rules:
1) Separate fats and carbs in your meals most of the time
2) NO SUGAR
3) All meals and snacks anchored with protein
Trim Healthy Mama Simple: how to keep it simple and make it work for you
I think most people get tripped up when they look at the THM cookbooks and see ingredients they’re unfamiliar with. Glucomannan, sunflower lecithin, frozen okra, nutritional yeast, etc – most people don’t use these items on a daily basis. While I personally have integrated these items into my diet because I think they’re beneficial, they’re not necessary on the plan.
To be sure, NO “special ingredients” are required – a fact that the authors of the Trim Healthy mama books emphasize over and over. Many of the recipes in the books are marked “NSI” (no special ingredients) for this reason.
You can keep Trim Healthy Mama simple by not worrying about these unusual ingredients (at least not at first – you might find them very useful once the diet is second nature!).
Separating Fats and Carbs
This part is confusing for some. For one, they’re unclear about what fats and carbs are. In THM parlance, carb-fueled meals are “E” (for energizing – while to me it would make more sense to call them F and C for fats and carbs, I didn’t invent the diet!) and fat-fueled meals are “S” (for satisfying).
So what are carbs? Brown rice, sweet potatoes, fruit, oatmeal, grains.
Fats include fatty meats (bacon, sausage, beef), full-fat dairy, peanut butter, oils, butter, whole eggs
Trim Healthy Mama is NOT a low-carb diet
Trim Healthy Mama works because when you eat a meal, your body gets busy burning the fats first (a pure fuel source – this is why the keto and paleo diets work for weight loss). If you have a lot of carbs in your meal, your body doesn’t get around to burning them before you’ve eaten again. Those extra carbs end up sitting around your waistline.
But THM isn’t a low carb diet. Carbs are necessary for brain health, mood stabilization, and adrenal and thyroid health. (As I explain in the video below, eating low-carb kills my thyroid gland and I find myself unable to lift myself off the couch after a few days! This is not the “low carb flu” – it doesn’t go away.)
So what does separating fats and carbs look like in a typical day?
Breakfast for me is almost always a fat fueled meal. Carbs don’t appeal to me in the AM. So it’s usually a “muffin in a mug” – made with gluten-free, low carb flour, a whole egg, stevia to sweeten and a bit of dark chocolate or berries. Or it might be a fried egg with bacon or sausage, coffee and cream (fat fueled)
Lunch: For energy, I typically something with carbs mid-day. For example: black bean soup or oatmeal with berries. Keeping in mind that THM meals and snacks are always anchored with protein, I’ll add a bit of chicken breast to the soup. With the oats, I might add egg whites (added at the end and cooked for just a moment, they make oatmeal very creamy!) or eat my oats with low-fat Greek yogurt.
Snack: A bit of dark chocolate with nuts (fat fueled) or fruit with greek yogurt (carbs)
Dinner: Mango chicken with black beans and rice (a family favorite, carb fueled) or something like salmon with butter and veggies (fats) or beef stew, a Mexican-inspired dish with cheese and ground beef (also fat fueled).
See Also:
If I’m fueling with carbs, I keep the fat content low. So no cream or tons of butter with my oatmeal, for example. If I’m fueling with fats, I keep the carb content low. So no potatoes in my beef stew (instead, non-starchy vegetables).
Does that sound like deprivation!? Absolutely not. I get to eat decent portion sizes of food and I don’t get hangry inbetween meals because of the way THM stabilizes my blood sugar.
If you prefer watching, here is a video I did on Facebook a while back explaining how to do Trim Healthy Mama simply:
The Main Benefits I’ve Noticed with Trim Healthy Mama
As I mention in the video, I had life-long troubles with hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). In school, my parents had to make special arrangements to allow me to eat inbetween breakfast and lunch, or I would pass out in P.E. class or have trouble with math (if it was before lunch!). I would experience uncomfortable symptoms if I ate carbs (because I didn’t know about the importance of anchoring them with protein). So stabilizing my blood sugar is a huge benefit I’ve seen on THM.
I have also stayed at my ideal weight effortlessly and without exercise. This is a biggie. People still believe that exercise leads to weight loss when research doesn’t back up that idea. Abs are made in the kitchen! I intentionally did not exercise during the weight loss phase. Exercise is important for your health and mood, however.
People often ask me which of the Trim Healthy Mama books I recommend. The oldest one is far too wordy for most people and was self-published, and its conversational style turns some people off. For someone wanting to keep the Trim Healthy Mama diet simple, I recommend buying one of the newer cookbooks!
I have both of the cookbooks and use them daily.
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook: Eat Up and Slim Down with More Than 350 Healthy Recipes
Trim Healthy Table: More Than 300 All-New Healthy and Delicious Recipes from Our Homes to Yours
The plan is explained in the opening pages of both, and it’s probably enough for a new person to get the basics. Focus on the recipes marked NSI for “no special ingredients”. There are also Facebook groups that provide support for people on the diet. People share recipes and tips. Just search Facebook!
If you want more info and to understand the “why” behind the rules of the diet, get the new plan book.
I have a small blog all about the THM diet. A couple of the most popular posts:
– How to do Trim Healthy Mama when you hate to cook or don’t have time
– What does a Trim Healthy Mama buy at ALDI?
Have you ever tried Trim Healthy Mama? What were your challenges?
p.s. I cook meals for my family that are “on plan” and noone has any complaints!
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I’m new to THM and I have to say I’ve been to all the popular sites, but YOURS is by far the best! I got more out of the few paragraphs (above) than all the rest. I understood the basics, but just couldn’t wrap my head around them when actually applying them. I now have a much better understanding. Thank you over and over again!
And may I add….YES! Why not just F and C !! Thanks again, so happy I found your site.
This was really easy to understand. I just started THM and found it confusing, but you broke it down to the 3 cardinal rules. Thank you.
I keep wanting to start this plan, but the issue I have is my food allergies. I am a part of the facebook group for THM that talks about allergies, but I just find the plan hard to follow because I cannot have dairy or eggs. I think I could follow this plan easily if I didn’t have those restrictions. The other issue is that often times it feels like this plan is only made for people who stay at home, homeschool, etc. I work full-time as a teacher, I have two kids and a husband, and I am in grad school. I don’t have a lot of time to prep or plan the meals they talk about in the cookbooks. Do you have any suggestions to deal with these issues? I also have hypothyroidism (Hashimotos) so I get the fatigue stuff from Keto diets. Thanks for any help.
Hey Megan! Those are challenges for sure. As for me, I’m a mom of 7, homeschooling, and run a business full time. I also have multiple food allergies in my home, so I get it! I would focus on slow cooker meals whenever possible, cook in bulk, and keep things simple, even if it means eating the same things repeatedly. And give yourself grace! Following the plan 80% is better than not at all!
Thank you for this. I followed THM for a year, fell off the wagon last year, and am only now getting back on.
To Megan, I work FT out of the home with a husband and 3 young boys. I understand feeling like this plan won’t work if you can’t stay at home but I found a few things super helpful to keep me on track.
1. Rotisserie chicken was a godsend
2. I made up 5 overnight oats on Sunday nights for super easy grab and go breakfasts.
3. I froze ACV in to ice cubes to throw in my big Togo cup in the morning.
4. Dinner was always the next days lunch. While making everybody’s plates I would put lunch in my Tupperware container too.
All of these things have helped so much and I am starting them all back up tonight for this week. ?
fantastic comment, thanks!
I bought the book and cookbook last year, but got thoroughly confused with WHEN to eat E, S or FP. While I understand that they want you to do one or the other, I just don’t know when or how! Do I have an entire day where every meal is an E meal, then the next day it’s all S meals, and so on (E, S, E, S) or do I mix it up (breakfast is E, lunch is S and dinner is E; breakfast is S, lunch is E, dinner is E)? For me, this plan just made meal planning for two weeks much harder than it needs to be.
P.S. I completely ageee – Why not F and C?!?!
Freestyle! Mix it up.
Carrie, I’m so glad I stumbled across your website today! Like many of the other comments, I too found this so helpful to me! I’ve been wanting to start eating the THM way but found it overwhelming and confusing so have put it off. I’ve listened to the THM audio book but still haven’t got through it bc of it being overwhelming. I also kept putting off ordering one of the cookbooks but now plan to order one right after I comment here. You simplified it so well for me! Thanks so much! I loved hearing your story and how it’s benefited you. I tried the Keto but just like the girls say, and you, God made grains and fruits for us to enjoy and it was hard for me to feel good about cutting all those out.
God bless
Sarah
I have an allergy to oatmeal, and most of the E meals have oats or oat fibre in them. Can I change it out for spelt or some other grain? I have seen rolled spelt and steel cut spelt in the bulk barn.
Hi Carolyn!
So I’m not sure about switching out oat fiber. This is definitely a question for the Trim Healthy Mama Facebook group. 🙂
My guess would be that it’s fine as long as the grain was low-glycemic.
Hello
I just started this meal plan ( yaaaa) no more counting points!! The video receipts I followed on the website was easy to do and food was delicious, however, like most I was very confused with S&E. Now I’ll go back and label my book F&C and I wasn’t sure if I had to eat E all day or S all dayI believe you said you can mix it up. Thank you , makes this a lot easier.
For someone starting new, the biggest challenge is having the right ingredients for cooking, everything else is simple
Your page is amazing. Thank you for all the wonderful information. I have several issues and don’t want to sound like I am complaining. How do you get off the sugar. What a hard struggle! Do you have other ideas for grab and go breakfasts? I can’t do pepper, shrimp or dairy and I have diabetes. Oatmeal seems to send my blood sugar soaring and then have that plummet. I have always used leftover dinner for lunch; their the bomb! But my other issue is finding new dinner recipes. We have our favorites, but are not THM worthy. How do you make your yogurt palatable? I make my own, but even with fruit, the yogurt is pastey tasting. Any suggestions are welcome and I would be so grateful.
Amazingly once you stop eating sugar the cravings disappear very rapidly! I have a handful of favorite sweet treats that are THM safe, and I love them. On the rare occasion I crave sweets, I reach for one of those. Grab and go breakfasts: overnight oats, BAM cake, hardboiled eggs, sprouted toast with cinnamon “sugar”, all on plan. I used to have a hard time with oatmeal too before THM. Now I prepare it with extra protein (whey protein powder or collagen) and my body loves it! I can go all morning on a bowl.