Nutrition For Weight Loss
Losing weight isn’t as simple as getting in your five-a-day. There are many rules you must follow if you want to see results. Maintaining healthy and balanced nutrition for weight loss is paramount and there are a few golden rules that you must always keep in mind if you want to shed a few pounds. I have listed all of these rules below, along with some nutritional diet plans to follow!
nutrition for weight loss
Nutrition For Weight Loss: Golden Rules
It is all about creating a calorie deficit - Simply put, to achieve optimum nutrition for weight loss you need to consume fewer calories than you burn. A calorie deficit forces your body to use stored reserves to supply you with the energy you need (primarily from the carbohydrate stores and the fat reserves in your body.) Exercise is a great way to help achieve this deficit!
Avoid simple-carbohydrates - Foods such as cake and baked goods (as yummy as they are) are detrimental to your nutrition for weight loss goals. Instead, try consuming carbohydrates such as oatmeal, whole-grain rice, and potatoes.
Keep fats in moderation - If you’re looking to lose weight, according to nutrition for weight loss expert dietitians, fats should only take up around 30% of your total energy intake. While they are a great source of energy, they will only pile on the pounds if you’re not careful. Foods such as avocado and fish are a fantastic means of getting some healthy fats into your diet, but should still be eaten in moderation.
Consume enough protein - Protein isn’t just for people looking to bulk up, we should all be eating enough of it! Protein-rich diets leave you feeling fuller for longer meaning you’re less likely to snack and go back for seconds. Tuna, beef, and chicken are all excellent sources of protein. If you’re a non-meat eater, red-lentils, soya beans, and quinoa are the way forward.
Get in your five-a-day - Fruit and vegetables are chock-full of essential nutrients that all serve to help you lose weight and stay healthy. You should eat at least two portions of fruit and three portions of vegetables a day – one portion being around 150 g. Vegetables in particular contain hardly any calories and can be eaten to your heart’s content!
Drink lots of water! - This is one of the most important rules to remember to achieve nutrition for weight loss! The human body cannot survive without water and you should be consuming around 1.5 to 2 liters a day depending on energy expenditure. Drinking a glass of water before mealtimes also helps you feel more full meaning you eat less!
Don’t starve yourself - While this may work in the short-term, starving yourself will only prove detrimental to your nutrition for weight loss in the long-run. You’ll manage for a while then inevitably pile all the weight back on after you cave and have a big old binge. If between meals you find yourself a bit peckish, you don’t need to ignore this craving. Have some fruit, a handful of nuts, or a yogurt. This is much better than resisting as it means you will eat less when it comes to mealtimes.
Nutrition For Weight Loss: The Best, Most Sustainable Diet Plans
One of the best ways to lose weight is to find a healthy diet that works for you and stick to it. It can be overwhelming sifting through the many diets that are available but here are some ones that have been proven to promote weight loss, in a healthy and sustainable fashion.
Plant-Based Diets
Plant-based diets, synonymous with veganism and vegetarianism, are hugely popular when it comes to losing weight, and have numerable health benefits. If you don’t feel like going completely cold-turkey when it comes to cutting meat and fish out of your diet, try being flexitarian instead.
This diet encourages you to eat eliminate all meat from your diet and avoid animal by-products such as eggs and dairy. It may sound pretty intense but due to how widespread veganism has become, there is an abundance of plant-based alternatives that provide the same nutrition (but with lower calories), while remaining vegan.
Studies have proven multiple times that plant-based diets provide great nutrition for weight loss and here’s why. These diets tend to be higher in fiber, which helps you stay fuller for longer, and are also very low in calories. They are linked to a reduced risk in chronic heart conditions, diabetes, and certain cancers.
If you’re worried about not getting in all your essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids, try the flexitarian approach.
Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet is based on the diets of people from Crete, Greece, and Southern Italy. Researchers have noted that these people were exceptionally healthy compared to Americans and had a low risk of many lifestyle diseases. Numerous studies have now shown that the Mediterranean diet can cause weight loss and help prevent heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and premature death. There is no strict set of rules when it comes to following the Mediterranean diet, as there are many countries around the Mediterranean sea and people in different areas may have eaten different foods.
Here are the basics:
What To Eat: Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, potatoes, whole grains, breads, herbs, spices, fish, seafood, and extra virgin olive oil.
What To Eat in Moderation: Poultry, eggs, cheese, and yoghurt.
What To Eat Only Rarely: Red meat.
What To Avoid: Sugar-sweetened beverages, added sugars, processed meat, refined grains, refined oils, and other highly processed foods.
If followed correctly, the Mediterranean diet is among the healthiest in the world. In 2020, for the third consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named the Mediterranean Diet the Best Overall Diet. The diet also comes in at the top spot on four other lists including Best Diets for Healthy Eating, Easiest Diets to Follow, Best Diets for Diabetes, and Best Plant-Based Diets.
Low- Carb Diets
The Modified Keto is the best and most sustainable example of this. There is no correct way to follow this modified version of keto. People generally try to get 50% of their calories from fat, 30% of their calories from protein, and 20% of their calories from carbs. You could have 100 grams of carbs daily on a 2,000 calorie keto 2.0 diet, or double the amount. If you increase your carb intake to 20% of your calories, it would no longer be considered a ketogenic diet, because it’s impossible to reach ketosis anymore.
As with regular keto, you can technically eat anything you like within the parameters of the diet, but foods like sugar, fruits, beans, legumes, and grains are usually very limited.
It is much more similar to the traditional Mediterranean diet which we have just looked at than a keto diet and that’s a good thing. By incorporating more lean proteins, especially fish and shellfish, as well as more fruits and vegetables, you’re increasing nutrient diversity which is the key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and getting the right nutrition for weight loss!
The approach is key if you don’t want to fall victim to those unhealthy saturated fats and carbs. It is all too easy to just add pasta to get more carbs in with modified keto, but instead, you should be getting your carbohydrates from fiber-rich sources such as beans, legumes, fruits, and whole grains — Read more about keto diet weight loss.
