Everybody knows that fruits and vegetables are packed with lots of vitamins, minerals and roughage to make them an important part of a healthy balanced diet. But many people don’t realize that fruits and vegetables can play a crucial role in a weight loss diet plan too.
Mostly people in a quest to lose weight fast opt for a diet slash-and-burn plan and start eating lot less than what they need to. But soon they feel deprived, so they give up. Such kind of diet fads come and go, but your weight stands there as it is. Have you gone through enough of these? In this article, we will tell you a way to lose and manage your weight – eating same amount of food that you are eating now. No deprivation!!
Read on to find out how do fruits and vegetables help us lose weight and which are the best fruits and vegetables to include in your diet to lose weight naturally.
Secrets of Losing Weight With Fruits And Vegetables
We know that eating fruits and vegetables is not only good for health, but helps us also to lose weight. Let us understand how does eating fruits and vegetables will help us lose weight?
1. The first secret is that most fruits and vegetables for their weight are low in calories and fat, but high in fiber – the three critical ingredients that matter for a successful weight loss. The result is although you eat to your full satisfaction – but still will intake a lot less calories as compared to when you eat snacks and chocolates! On top of that they are nutrient dense with lots of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to make you healthy and protect you from diseases.
2. The second secret is that they make you feel full. All fruits from a juicy apple to a crisp red lettuce are packed with water and fiber that will make you feel full longer at the cost of intake of fewer calories. That means they suppress your cravings for something sweet or munching on snacks, which can add weight to your body.
Just imagine you are a feeling a low in afternoon and looking for something to eat to carry you through to dinner. You have two options, one a handful of potato chips with 160 calories, or three cups of whole strawberries with 140 calories. Which you think is a better option to fill your belly? Obviously the second one by which you can eat a lot more and keep you full longer, albeit with intake of less calories.
3. The third secret is that you don’t need to starve yourself to reduce your weight. Many studies have shown that we tend to eat same volume or weight of food every day without considering calorie content. So by eating fruits and vegetables you make up this volume, but at the same time you comply with the dictum that to reduce your weight you need to stick to lower calorie intake.
If you look at this more closely, you will observe – there are many fruits and vegetables that in fact weigh a lot and can add bulk to your diet, but provide a lot less calories.
Fruits And Vegetables For Weight Loss And Disease-Fighting Nutrition
Don’t forget that the juicy fruits and crispy vegetables, along with helping you in weight loss, provide you with disease-fighting nutrition as well. Whereas a handful of potato chips won’t curtail the risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes, cut down on certain types of cancer, or lower cholesterol, but some studies have found that the antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals contained in fruits and vegetables may do so.
Is it not enough allurement for you now to swap at least some of the fattier, calorie-loaded foods in your diet with fruits and vegetables to derive their full benefits – weight loss, reduced risk of life style diseases.
Some Facts And Myths About Fruits And Vegetables For Weight Loss
We often get confused about whether to eat bananas, avocados, sweet-corns, carrots and peas that are undoubtedly higher in calories than most other fruits and vegetables. For instance calories contained in two small apples are equivalent to that contained in one banana. Another example is that you can eat six times more spinach to get the same amount of calories as that offered by sweet-corns.
All though such fruits and veggies have more calories, but you don’t have to shun them. Nevertheless they are source of essential nutrients and fiber that will keep you full longer to suppress your cravings to snack on fatty and sugar foods. However, you can add them to your food diary to keep a track of the calories you are consuming by including in your daily total.
Most people also get in a dilemma over whether to eat avocados that are higher in fat than the most other fruits and veggies. The fact is most of the fat contained in avocados is heart-healthy – monounsaturated (good fat), that too comes along with loads of vitamin E.
Which Are Best Fruits And Vegetables For Weight Loss?
Now may be you are considering to include fruits and vegetables into your weight loss diet plan. The next logical question will come to your mind is, which fruits and veggies will give you the best knock-off.
The answer is: all of them. Include in your diet a wide variety of fruits and vegetables every day. Go for five servings daily and opt for a mix of all colors to get effective mix of various essential nutrients. You can aim for all fruits and vegetables, including fresh, canned, frozen, dried and they all count for the recommended daily five servings.
You will find somebody urging you to include blueberries for its numerous benefits; another may lobby for pomegranate for its antioxidant properties. But ultimately it won’t make much difference which fruits and vegetables you eat in the overall scheme of things. The aim should to get a mix of them inside you.
A tip is to go for fruits and veggies you really love, because if you like the taste you will continue including them in your daily diet.
How Much Fruit And Vegetables Should I Eat?
The USDA recommends we may have two cups of fruits a day, and two and a half cups of vegetables (for a 2,000 calorie diet).
Fruits And Vegetables – Fresh, Frozen, or Dried?
So you must have decided by now to include fruits and vegetables into your weight loss diet plan. Now a question may come to your mind is – how should you enjoy them – fresh or frozen or dried? Answer is again all of them. However, the local and seasonal produce have slight nutrient edge over the others. But you still can go for others. Dried, canned or frozen fruits and vegetables are normally chosen just before their full ripeness and then packaged. So what you get is nearly fresh food by the time they reach you.
Few tips to watch:
(i) If you have a choice, go for fresh fruits and vegetables. They are the best.
(ii) While buying canned fruits, watch out for the additions like syrup. Go for the fruits that are packed in water or juice.
(iii) Stick to whole fruits instead of their juice. Even 100% juice can have more calories than the sweetened soda, and a lot of fiber missing. It is not as filling as a fresh whole fruit.
(iv) 100% veggie juices normally have far less calories than the fruits juices. But watch out they often contain a lots of sodium, so keep an eye on their portion included in your diet.
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