When you feel the need to lose weight, please don’t go on a hunger strike. Most people tend to hate food the moment they feel like they are overweight. What they don’t know is they are actually endangering themselves. Diet is not always healthy – it literally means the total amount of food intake. It is all about choosing what food to eat.
Diet could also be harmful when healthy foods are not considered and an untimely alteration of the food intake is done without giving the body an adjustment period. There are many factors to consider when you choose to change your diet. There are even dozens of products, supplements, and diet plans that can help you lose weight. Here are some changes and additions to make to your diet to lose weight.
Cut Out Unhealthy Foods
Admit it, you know what is healthy and what is not. We were taught about Go, Grow, and Glow foods and you know that chips, fries, ice cream, candies, and chocolates are not on the list. You can also include sodas, juices, and fried foods on the list of your unhealthy foods. These are the culprits that keep on adding unhealthy weight to your body.
Less Sugar and Salt
When you choose to be on a diet, be the one to prepare your food. Gradually decrease your salt when cooking until you feel like you can eat without adding some. Your taste buds will eventually adjust to the absence of salt. Avoid eating too many sweets, you can actually find some deserts with no sugar added.
Eat a Little of Everything
If you are used to eating until you feel bloated, then start changing that habit. Our stomach is just the size of our fist and how do you think such an amount of food would fit into that small sack of tissues? You could eat without skipping any meals but remember to eat only in small amounts. More treatments like surgery or non-surgical treatment options like medication and diet coaching are also very effective. Have a taste of your favorite food but not more than that. If you think that you are about to add more to your healthy plate, drink water and just get out of the table.
High-Fiber Foods
Oatmeal has soluble fiber which plays a huge part in reducing the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad” cholesterol in your body. Apart from oatmeal, soluble fiber can be found in other foods such as apples, kidney beans, pears, prunes, and barley. This fiber helps reduce the absorption of bad cholesterol into your bloodstream.
If you have 1 ½ cups of cooked oatmeal for your diet then this provides 6 grams of fiber. You can also mix in some fruits such as bananas to add an extra 4 grams of fiber. So by having 5 grams or more of soluble fiber in your diet each day, you can do a lot in decreasing the total LDL cholesterol.
Eat More Greens
You don’t need to be a vegetarian, but adding vegetables and fruits to your diet would help a lot. Instead of having a snack with chips and some finger foods, you could chew on some apples, grapes, or any fruit you like. If you hate chewing green veggies, you can consider using green superfood powders that use organic fruits, veggies, and green juices in the formulation to overcome nutritional deficiency, overall health, and healthy body weight.
Omega 3 Fatty Acids
Fatty fish is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids that can be healthy for the heart and reduce your blood pressure. This can also benefit people who recently had a heart attack since omega 3 can help prevent the risk of sudden death. So it is recommended that people should indulge in at least 2 servings of fish a week.
The best way to cook these fish is by grilling or baking them so that you can further avoid unhealthy fats. For those who don’t like fish that much then you can also consider canola oil or ground flaxseed but the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in these foods is only minimal.
You can also consider taking fish oil supplements but they don’t have nutrients such as selenium which can be commonly found in fish. When taking this supplement, just make sure to take care of your diet and eat lean vegetables or meat instead of fish.
Nuts
Nuts, especially almonds and walnuts, are very helpful in reducing blood cholesterol. Aside from that, it maintains the health of your blood vessels. If you plan on having nuts in your diet, make sure that they are not salty or coated with sugar since it can cause other health issues to arise.
Eating about 42.5 grams of nuts a day will surely reduce the risk of heart disease. Just watch for the number of nuts you’ll be eating each day since it is also high in calories.
So when you say you are on a diet, what are you referring to? Are you losing weight? Maintaining? Or gaining? If you indeed want to lose weight, then you must not take your diet for granted. It takes dedication, commitment, and discipline to successfully follow a strict weight loss diet plan.
