You already know that eating healthy is important in general, but when you’re trying to lose weight, it’s even more important. There are a lot of diet trends out there, and it may not be clear what a real healthy diet looks like. Whether you’re looking to form good eating habits or a healthy diet for weight loss, here are some general guidelines to keep in mind the next time you go grocery shopping or order a meal at your favorite restaurant.
1. Smarter eating should always take precedence over deprivation.
Deprivation or “yo-yo” dieting can slow down your metabolism and make you more likely to get a long-term illness.
Yo-yo dieting often leads to weight cycling, which means gaining and losing weight over and over again. Weight cycling may cause long-term inflammation and can make you more likely to get a long-term disease.
Don’t deny yourself food if you want to lose weight or keep it the same. If you choose quality over quantity and follow these tips, you can cut down on how much you eat.
2. Don’t just look at the calories
To eat well and live a healthy, active life, you need to do more than just add up your daily calories or points.
Choose foods based on how full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, and healthy fats they are. This means that you should choose foods that have a high nutrient density.
Nutrient-rich foods give your cells the information they need to work and may help keep you from getting sick. The best part is that they also make you feel happier.
3. Don’t substitute veggie-based foods for veggies
Don’t buy the veggie chips, crackers, or pasta that you’re starting to see outside of the produce section. At the end of the day, most veggie chips, for example, are made from a mix of vegetable powder (also called “flour”) and added starch. They are similar to tortilla chips.
Check the ingredients if you sometimes want veggie chips that will satisfy your need for a crunchy snack without making you feel bad. Try some good veggie chips that are only made of one or two things. The best chips list the actual vegetable and a little salt, and there are great dehydrated chips that don’t have the extra calories or starch that other chips do.
Now go to the produce section and get some real vegetables. They have a lot of vitamins A, C, potassium, magnesium, and fiber, which makes you feel full, that processed chips don’t have. It doesn’t have to be hard to eat fresh vegetables, either.
You should eat non-starchy vegetables at every meal of the day for the best health. Add spinach to a smoothie for breakfast or a salad for lunch. Try cauliflower rice, spaghetti squash, or zucchini noodles for dinner.
4. Instead of juice, choose whole fruit
One of the main sources of added sugar in the American diet is fruit drinks. They have more sugar than whole fruit, cause a rise in blood sugar, and make the fat-storing hormone insulin come out. This rise in blood sugar is quickly followed by a drop, which can make you tired, foggy-headed, hungry, and want sugar.
Fruit juice also lacks the fiber that whole fruits have. Fiber is one of four “shortfall nutrients” that the standard American diet (SAD) doesn’t get enough of, and it’s important for a healthy gut and heart.
Instead of drinking fruit juice, eat whole fruits like apples, kiwis, and berries.
5. Limit sugar consumption
A major cause of obesity, type II diabetes, and other long-term diseases is eating too much sugar. One study has found a link between too much added sugar and a greater chance of dying from heart disease.
The problem is that sugar is in almost all of the food we eat, and it often hides on the list of ingredients.
Choose foods in their simplest form to cut down on how much sugar you eat. This means, for example, that you should choose steel-cut oats over instant oatmeal packs.
Reading labels is a great way to make sure you’re getting the most out of what you buy. There are options for plain instant oatmeal that don’t have any added sugar, which is always the best choice.
6. Don’t buy products with less fat.
To set the record straight, eating fat-rich foods does not always lead to more fat on your body. In reality, your body gets most of its energy from fats. They make it easier to take in fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, as well as carotenoids. They can also help you feel full faster and for longer.
These healthy parts of fat are often taken out of “low-fat” foods during processing. These foods aren’t always lower in calories and are often higher in sugar. There are some low-fat choices that are very good for you. Low-fat and fat-free milk are both great choices that don’t have any added sugars.
Again, the most important rule is to read the list of what’s in the food. There are probably a lot of unhealthy things added to a lot of low-fat dressings. Even strawberry vinaigrettes with less fat can have extra ingredients you don’t want.
