subject: What You Can Eat To Lose Weight [print this page] What You Can Eat To Lose Weight What You Can Eat To Lose Weight
What to eat to lose weight
An interesting writer called Michael Pollan, who writes about food and our relationship with it, has a very simple rule for eating right: eat, eat little, mostly plants. His rule has as much to do with the health of our environment as our own health, but it touches the three main mistakes we do every day, affecting our health, and in consequence, our weight. We skip meals, we do not eat breakfast, our favorite restaurants are 'all you can eat', we eat like we are all construction workers, and we believe that a meal without meat does not count as a meal. No wonder one of the biggest health problems in the USA is obesity.
When we worry about our weight, we often think more about the way we look than about our health, but the two issues are directly connected. All major health issues in the modern world are related to food: hearth disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity. By looking at the way we eat from the health point of view, we put the finger to the best solution for obesity, and even less drastic weight gain: changing the way of life. Following Pollan's simple rule offers a simple solution to not so simple problem.
Eat
This sounds like no brainer. We all eat. But, we often skip meals, because we are busy, or because we believe that one less meal would help our weight loss program. Skipping meals leads to eating too much at our next meal, and it triggers our body's defense mechanism: when our body does not get regular source of energy, it stores food in the form of fat, as a reserve, instead of using it for energy.
Eat little
Our way of life, which is mostly sedentary, does not require as much food as we normally consume. Except people who are engaged in hard physical labor like farmers, truck drivers, construction workers, athletes, most of us do not require much food for normal functioning. Excess food that is not converted to energy gets stored as fat. Europeans, who eat much less, but eat high calorie high fat food, are the example of the danger of large portions and over-eating. Exercise helps burn some of the excess calories, but considering how much we eat, we would need much more exercise than most people are ready for.
Eat mostly plants
Plants, fruits and vegetables have a lot going for them: they are full of minerals and vitamins; they contain large quantities of fiber. Most plant foods are low in fat, low in calories and even a small quantity makes you feel full.This does not mean that we should eat tons of vegetables to lose weight, especially when it comes to starchy veggies like potatoes, corn, peas or plantains. It also does not mean that we should all turn vegetarian. But, making large part of our meals vegetables instead of meat and starches would make us feel full with much less food and in the same time have plenty of energy.
Transition to mostly plant-based diet can be hard, but it helps if we chose vegetables we actually like. Regardless how healthy broccoli is, if you hate it, you are better off eating a nice bowl of mixed greens with low fat dressing, otherwise you will quit before you really feel the benefit of your new diet regime.
North American culture is used to flavoring its food with fat and sugar. Replacing it with spices and herbs can add another healthy element missing in our nutrition. Many herbs have health benefits of their own. Mixed with vegetables, they make a wholesome and wonderfully flavorful meal, which we happily enjoy when we eat in ethnic restaurants, but do not think of making at home. There is a lot we can learn from cultures where people, mostly out of poverty, learned to eat very little meat, and developed a wonderful cuisine without the need for fat.
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