Many fad diets neglect proper nutrition for weight loss. You may
lose weight with these diets. However, your health may suffer. Is it
possible to lose weight in a healthy fashion, while eating foods you
love and getting proper nutrition at the same time? Absolutely. Believe
it or not, the secrets of a healthy weight loss diet all boil down to a
few easy rules.
First, shoot for as many servings of vegetables
and fruits per day as you can handle. Sneak them in with each meal in
various ways, whether it's adding a salad to your dinner, berries to
your breakfast cereal, or a side of vegetables instead of French fries
with your lunch. Try to eat fresh or frozen vegetables, and stay away
from the canned varieties, which pack a lot of sodium and lose their
nutrients through the canning process. (Tomatoes are an exception to
this, as they retain nutrients and are quite healthy when canned.) Also,
aim for a variety of colors.
Different colored foods lend us different
nutrients, so it is important to eat fruits and vegetables from the red,
orange, yellow, white, and green families.
If you have a hard
time getting your daily fruit and vegetable servings in, you can
disguise your food to hold more nutrients! For instance, try a fruit and
berry smoothie with a little low fat ice cream. Or, finely grind up
carrots and add them to your spaghetti sauce. You can even grind up
spinach and add it to meatballs or low fat hamburgers or turkey burgers.
With a little ingenuity, you'll find those fruits and vegetables
disappearing into your system quite stealthily and easily!
Another
food group that promotes good nutrition and healthy weight loss is
whole grains. Instead of white bread, noodles and rice, which have been
stripped of their beneficial nutrients, eat as many whole grain products
as possible. This includes whole wheat bread and pastas, bran, rolled
oats, brown rice, and many other types of grain. If you want to
experiment, you might even try barley, quinoa, or another more exotic
grain that does not receive as much focus in typical western culture.
When
you are looking for whole wheat bread, be wary of advertising tricks.
Many breads and cereals will announce that they are made of wheat or
contain whole grains. However, wheat flour is not the same thing as
whole-wheat flour, and even a cereal with whole grains can be loaded up
with white flour as its main ingredient. Make sure that the very first
ingredient in your bread and cereal is one hundred percent whole wheat,
or another whole grain flour, such as oat.
In addition to fruits,
vegetables, and whole grains, you will also want to make sure you are
limiting sugary, fatty foods. It is a good idea to have a little bit of
fat each day, but your fat should come from healthy sources such as
olive or canola oil. Shortening, butter, and other saturated fats are
very unhealthy. You will also want to avoid trans fats, and the best way
to do this is to steer clear of packaged foods and look for fresh,
whole foods instead. A word of caution: although a small amount of
healthy fat is good for you, use fats sparingly while trying to lose
weight. A little goes a long way.
Finally, it is important to note
that although you are eating healthfully, you can still gain weight if
you eat too much of a good thing! Be loosely aware of your calorie
intake each day, and make sure you don't go over the amount specified
for weight loss by your doctor.
Good weight loss is not about
deprivation and focusing on what you can't have. Rather, it is about
celebrating the joys of eating nutritious, whole foods. Even a week or
two into this diet plan, you will begin to notice that your energy has
picked up, your eyes look brighter, and you feel great. Don't give up,
even if it's difficult at first. These new habits will soon become a way
of life that will cause you to be the best person you possibly can be.
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