“What to eat to lose weight?” We are used to taking this expression as a joke, but there is nothing funny about it. Any nutritionist will tell you that the processes of “irrevocable” weight loss begin only when we come to a healthy eating system, and do not experience all sorts of diets full of restrictions and prohibitions. A healthy diet for weight loss also involves the prohibition of certain foods, but believe me, the human body can do just fine without them.
How does a healthy eating system differ from diets that promise real results, but are modestly silent about the consequences? Any diet is not only complete or partial exclusion from the diet of certain foods that are vital for the normal functioning of the body. The diet is always finite, sooner or later you will have to “get off” from it, so as not to cause irreparable harm to health. And as soon as the diet stops and the person returns to the usual diet, his kilograms return to him. Healthy eating is not a diet, but a way of life. Diet is always stressful, because it, albeit temporarily, prohibits the use of certain foods. By following the principles of a healthy diet, you will only get stress from the ban on the use of cola, fast food and convenience stores. It’s terrible, of course, but we are able to survive this shock.
A healthy diet for weight loss is a set of simple rules and principles that are not difficult to follow. It is known that any habit is developed in 40 days. By following these simple rules, in a month and a half you will accustom yourself to eat properly, heal your body, and a healthy body is a slender body. Let’s start?
• A glass of hot water is the first meal in the early morning. It is advisable to drink pure hot water, since it is it that cleanses the gastrointestinal tract and smoothly launches all body systems. Is it just water boring? Add lemon juice and a teaspoon of honey, ginger juice or ground cinnamon to a glass – these spices increase metabolism. You can have breakfast after water in 15-30 minutes.
• Drinking regime throughout the day must be observed strictly. If there are no contraindications, you should drink at least 2 liters of clean water per day. Train yourself to drink a glass of water every hour, and you will immediately notice that the swelling will go away, shortness of breath will disappear, and the desire to eat will turn out to be just thirst. Tea, coffee, juices and soups do not belong to drinking, they are all food.
• Make a healthy habit of eating “like in kindergarten”, that is, 4-5 times a day in small portions. Long breaks between meals contribute to increased portions and overeating.
• Do not overeat at night, but also do not starve, following the strange prescription “do not eat after 18-00”. The last meal should be no later than 3 hours before bedtime, so if you are used to going to bed at midnight, your dinner should be at 21-00.
• When preparing food, give preference to stewing, baking and steaming. These cooking methods do not use fat, which automatically reduces the calorie content of your meals.
• You can fry. But! Rarely, on fresh vegetable or animal fats and not mixing the latter in one dish. Translated into human language, this means that potatoes should be fried in vegetable oil, and meat in ghee or butter. It follows from this that fried potatoes and a piece of fried meat, in principle, should not meet on your plate. That is, you need to cook stewed vegetables for a fried dish, and deep-fried potatoes are ideal for steamed fish.
• When choosing a side dish, give preference to vegetables. This will greatly facilitate the work of the digestive system. Followers of the system of separate power supply will understand me.
• Complex carbohydrates – cereals, pasta – are good on their own. They are best consumed with vegetables. By the way, no one forbids eating pasta, the main thing is to choose products from durum wheat and do not accompany pasta dishes with fatty sauces and heavy meat dishes.
• The diet of a modern person must necessarily contain fiber, because it is no longer a secret that most of the products that appear on our table are cleansed of all “unnecessary” to such an extent that it becomes the cause of many diseases, including obesity. Therefore, in addition to wishes, there are more vegetables and fruits and the use of whole grain bread, nutritionists recommend using various bran in dishes. They can be steamed and consumed according to the scheme, but it is much easier to add bran to cereals, salads, curd masses and pates. In the composition of dishes, bran is not noticeable, and the benefits of their use are obvious: the bran passing through the gastrointestinal tract is not digested and removes harmful substances from the intestines, which, in turn, improves the absorption of nutrients, speeds up metabolism and promotes weight loss.
• When cooking, look out for spices that can help you lose weight. Anise, cayenne pepper, turmeric, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, horseradish and other hot spices accelerate metabolism, reduce bad cholesterol, improve digestion and have fat burning properties. On our website you can always find a detailed description of each spice and recommendations for its use. Keep in mind that monosodium glutamate, which has recently become very popular, is not a spice, but only has flavor-enhancing properties. Its harmlessness, by the way, raises strong doubts.
• Instead of your usual tea and coffee, make ginger tea or make a lemonade drink based on ginger and lemon. Ginger is a powerful beauty and slimming agent. And in cold times, ginger will also help you not to fall off with a cold.
• When preparing salads, dress them with lemon or other citrus juice, fruit or balsamic vinegar, natural soy sauce, and cold-pressed vegetable oils.
• For many, obesity is due to poor functioning of the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland produces hormones that affect the metabolism, and if the problem is not associated with any disease, it is enough to increase the amount of iodine-rich foods in your diet to make the process of losing weight much more fun. Iodine is vital for the normal functioning of the thyroid gland, so eat more seafood, sea fish, kelp, and also use natural sea salt in your food.
• Calcium is another substance that is responsible for normal metabolism. Calcium is responsible for providing nutrients to the cells of the body. Make sure that foods containing calcium regularly appear on your table: milk and dairy products (especially lactic acid), sesame seeds and almonds (they can be added to dishes, or you can prepare healthy nut milk, which contains many times more calcium in a glass than in a glass of milk), fish, etc.
• Take into account the glycemic index of foods when compiling a menu. This is important because excess glucose is always stored in our body in the form of fat, and getting rid of fat is, oh, how difficult it is. On our site there are tables of foods with low (up to 40 units), medium (40-60 units) and high (over 60 units) glycemic index – use them and decide that you can eat almost without restrictions, and from what should, if not refuse altogether, then at least eat not so often.
• Reduce the amount of salt! Thanks to the huge amount of semi-finished products and sausages, the amount of salt in our daily diet is off the charts.
• The same can be said for another type of “white death”, sugar. Sugar and its artificial substitutes are present in explicit or latent form in all types of industrial sweets, sugary drinks, juices, ice cream, muesli, cereals, refined flour products, and even in tomato ketchup and lecho. All these products and dishes are best prepared by yourself, replacing sugar with honey, fructose, or reducing its amount to a minimum.
• It is very unwise to completely stop eating fat. To reduce their number – yes, it is necessary, but the body cannot be completely without fat. Eat nuts, fatty fish, flaxseed porridge, do not give up butter – the main thing is that the total amount of fat does not exceed 30 g per day. In the morning, you can drink flaxseed oil or an infusion of ground flaxseed in olive oil, this will help cleanse the intestines, reduce the level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood, improve the functioning of the endocrine glands and liver, normalize the metabolism of fats, and also help to improve the condition of the skin, hair and nails. You need to drink oil in the morning on an empty stomach, 10 minutes after you drank a glass of hot water. Breakfast – in 40 minutes.
A healthy diet for weight loss does not imply strict restrictions, because it is not a diet. But there are foods that should still be discarded if possible, since they not only do not bring any benefit to the body, but can even harm your health. Such products include: alcohol, cigarettes (this is not food, but healthy eating and smoking are incompatible things), white flour products, any fast food, mayonnaise, ketchup, chips, crackers, sweet soda (not only bourgeois cola, but and any lemonades, and do not get fooled by the inscription “GOST”!), confectionery of all kinds and varieties, sausages, sausages and other “meat” semi-finished products, white polished rice and semolina, fried and smoked products (especially purchased). The non-benefits of all these products have already been talked about, but the habit turns out to be stronger …
Artificial fats should not be consumed! Margarine and the so-called “soft” or “light” butter are made from low quality vegetable oils by sublimation, as a result of which trans fats are formed in products with a distorted molecular structure that is not found anywhere else in nature. Trans fats can disrupt cellular metabolism, contribute to the accumulation of toxins and increase the level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood and cause significant harm to our health. Trans fats are perhaps one of the most deadly inventions of humanity. You can find out more about fats and trans fats on the pages of our website.
There isn’t much to exclude, is it? Of course, you have to fight your own habits, because it is much easier to throw a couple of sausages into the water, stir instant mashed potatoes and season this dinner with mayonnaise and ketchup, or just boil or fry dumplings from a pack … Both quickly and tasty, but not useful. By the way, no one forbids eating dumplings and dumplings. You just need to cook them yourself. Gather the whole family in the kitchen, tearing away the household from the TV and computer, and stick five kilograms of dumplings, cutlets or cabbage rolls, and freeze it – and the issue of a quick dinner for the next couple of months will be resolved. The same goes for muesli, kozinaki, chips and other “quick” breakfast or snack foods. It is in your power to please yourself and your loved ones with useful homemade goodies.
In addition to the above “harmful” foods, you can eat everything, slightly limiting yourself only in some cases. For example, you can eat potatoes no more than 1-2 times a week in baked or boiled form, pasta from durum wheat – 3-4 times a week, slightly undercooking them, eat boiled beets and carrots less often due to the high glycemic index (exactly in boiled, raw these roots can be eaten as much as you like!), sometimes you can afford sweet marshmallows, marshmallows and marmalade (they do not contain fat), as well as honey, a little bitter chocolate and dried fruits. Nutritionists have no complaints about other products.
A healthy diet for weight loss involves the use of weekly fasting days. They are especially effective at the beginning of the path to harmony, when the body sheds excess with relief. You can choose any of the types of fasting days, since there are many recipes now: kefir, cottage cheese, apple, banana, cucumber, watermelon, buckwheat – stop at one or alternate them, the benefits of fasting days are obvious and undoubted.
That’s all the principles of a healthy diet for weight loss. And even if the effect of applying these principles is not as bright and quick as after a fashionable diet, the result will be reliable. And such a “side effect” as the improvement of the whole organism will be a pleasant bonus for you.
Eat varied and healthy, and be healthy!
Larisa Shuftaykina