Eating to lose weight
Eating to lose weight. Eating sensibly may just be the key to improving your health and accelerating your weight loss.
A sensible balanced diet that will help you to lose weight may be a lot easier to maintain if you are aware of the main food type functions and how they work in your body.
By balancing these following 3 categories of food in your daily diet you will soon discover how to easily manipulate and control your weight more effectively.
The three main categories of food are protein, carbohydrates and fats. Each has a different purpose in your diet and each remains crucial to your well being and so eliminating any particular category from your diet would have a negative impact.
It far more advisable to learn the benefits of each category and utilize them to their best advantage resulting in a slimmer and healthier you.
Protein, carbohydrates and fats in your diet
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are a food type that is vastly misunderstood and unfortunately diets such as the “Low Carb Diet” have probably created even further misunderstanding of this vital food group.
Calories derived from carbohydrates are the easiest type of calories for your body to convert into energy and so are usually used by your body first. This makes carbohydrates a valuable source of energy that is rapidly converted to available energy without being stored as fat.
Carbohydrates are rich in essential dietary fiber. The benefit of consuming fiber rich carbs is that the fiber content will greatly assist you in your weight loss. Fiber not only benefits your colon function but also reduces fat absorption in your body. This helps with calorie intake reduction and cholesterol reduction.
The negative is that carbohydrates do trigger an insulin spike which in turn produces a hormone called Cortisol. This hormone can cause the formation of belly fat.
How to use carbohydrates to your benefit.
Carbohydrates should be eaten in smaller more regular portions throughout the day. Break your meals down into 3 set meals and 3 planned snacks in between the main meals. Divide your carbohydrates among the 6 portions so that you get a regular supply of calories in smaller quantities without the undesirable major insulin spikes.
Proteins
Protein should be carefully balanced with your carbohydrates. The major benefit of protein in dieting is that out of 100 calories of protein eaten some 25 of these calories seem to disappear. Only 75 of these calories are actually absorbed by your body. Out of 100 calories of carbohydrates or fat up to 97 are absorbed by your body.
It makes sense that having a balance of protein in your diet will reduce your overall intake of calories which contributes to your weight loss.
Fats
Fats, especially fat derived from animals, is the bad word of dieting. Calories from fats are the most difficult of all the calories for your body to convert into energy. As a result calories from fat are often stored on your body as fat.
“Fat turns to fat.”
It is best to avoid as much fat as possible and to eat mainly lean cuts of meat to so as to avoid the fat content. Try to limit red meats to a minimum choosing to rather eat the healthier white meats instead.
While you should never try to eliminate any of the above food groups from your meals entirely, it is wise to limit your fats to as little as possible. When eating foods that have high fat content ensure that you combine these with carbohydrates that are rich in fiber as the fiber content will assist to reduce the amount of fat absorbed by your body thereby also reducing cholesterol intake.
A typical sensible balanced meal
If you would really like a good practical example of a well balanced health meal then all you need do is to think about the traditional Sunday roast that your grandmother used to cook.
You would have a small portion of roast meat that had little fat on. With this was usually some rice and potatoes which is fiber rich carbohydrates and which helped reduce the fat content of the meat. Then there was the ample serving of fresh vegetables.
While the Sunday roast was a time of overeating it was really quite a well balanced and healthy meal that if eaten in moderation would not cause weight gain.
If you are looking for some inspiration and guidance for cooking easy home style meals with loads of flavor then please have a look at these recipes.
