Home cooked meals are the best thing that you can add into your weight loss program due to how doing so can help you to lose weight. A research found that eating home cooked meals resulted in fewer calories consumed as compared to eating out at restaurants. Also, those that eat home cooked meals were also found to have consumed fewer calories when they do eat out. However, it is important to note that there are a variety of cooking methods that can be used depending on the food in question. Within those, there are unhealthier cooking methods that should be avoided if you intend to lose weight.

Unhealthy cooking methods

The way we cook our food can play a significant role in our diet because if a meal is prepared in the right way, it can increase our intake of valuable nutrients and vitamins. Cooking at a very high temperature for a long time will usually destroy most of the essential vitamins and nutrients in the food that your body needs. During a diet, there will be drastic changes in your eating habit, and that will result in an increased need for vitamins and nutrients. Deep-frying food is the unhealthiest way of preparing your food, due to the significant amount of oil that is usually used.

Healthy cooking methods

Steaming is one of the best ways of making a home cooked meal as healthy as possible. You can use this technique while following a Mediterranean diet plan because chicken and fish are delicious when cooked that way. Additionally, boiling your vegetables for salads is a great way to make your food healthier. However, you should try to avoid eating mashed potatoes or potatoes of any kind, because they have a high level of starch which will inhibit your weight loss.

What you should eat

Try recipes that include vegetables that are rich in vitamins, like carrots. Do you know that carrots have more vitamin C than every other fruit or vegetable? If you want to receive all the benefits you can get from vegetables, try to eat lots of salads. Salads are a great way of incorporating more vegetables into your diet. For those that want to eat salads as a more filling meal, you can also add some carbohydrates and protein like pasta and grilled salmon respectively.

Take your mind off exercise and food to focus on what you should drink to lose weight. Here are top weight lossdrinks that will help you lose extra weight.

Water                            

Water not only quenches your thirst but also helps in weight loss, topping the list of weight loss drinks. Water boosts your metabolism and cleanses your body. Research had proven that drinking water before a meal ate less and subsequently lost more weight than those that did not. Here are some suggestions to increase water intake and lose weight by drinking water.

  • Drink water before your meal to reduce food intake.
  • Drink water when you feel the cravings for calorie-rich drinks.
  • Adding some fruits to provide more flavours to your water might convince you to drink more.

Fruit Juice

Consuming fruit juice will help you to lose weight, as they are a healthier alternative compared to carbonated drinks. Here, you have a large variety of fruit juice to choose from, reducing the chances of you growing tired of drinking them. Go for natural fruit juices and drink them fresh. Avoid processed fruit juices or those with high sugar and calories content.

Vegetable Juice

Vegetable juice is yet another juice that helps in weight loss. Your appetite will be suppressed, and you get the required nutrients and fibre to keep you going strong. Additionally, you may feel fuller for a longer period. Go for vegetable juices that are low in sodium. Other health benefits you derive from drinking vegetable juice include an increase in energy and improved immune system. Opt for juice made from raw vegetables to lose weight and enjoy other health benefits and avoid processed vegetable juices.

Green Tea

The health benefits of green tea are well known. One of the main advantages, of course, is weight loss. Green tea boosts your metabolism. When your metabolism is faster, more calories can be burned, although the extent of the effect is dependent on the individual. EGCG in green tea cuts down the absorption level of fats you consume. Drinking green tea may also curb your appetite, leading to fewer calories being consumed.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice has always been recommended for weight loss. Lemon is rich in acidic content, which lowers sugar absorption from the foods you consume. The lower level of sugar intake means that you will have a lesser amount of sugar converted into fat. Furthermore, lemon juice helps in absorption of calcium, which is stored in fat cells and enhances the ability to burn fat. Lemon juice reduces your hunger pangs due to the pectin present in lemon.

While weight loss can be achieved by drinking these juices, it is always best to exercise regularly. That would not only quicken the results but also keep you healthy.

If you find yourself consuming significant amounts of slightly unhealthy food and wish to stop, you should consider going on a cleansing diet plan as a weight loss method. However, you have to be determined and stay focused.

Cleansing diet plan

A cleansing diet plan is based on the idea that most of the foods we eat today may have toxic effects on the body, and that we keep these toxins within us. A way to get them out is by doing a detox, which usually involves consuming particular types of food that are unprocessed and non-genetically modified. Such food can help to get rid of toxins and help us with our weight loss plans.

What is the cleansing process?

Specifically, cleansing is a general process by which the body gets rid of the unhealthy substances that take a long time to be processed when consumed. For those that had a stressful period and eating habits were a little off and unhealthy, this diet could do wonders.

So basically, what this diet does is removing all the remains of junk in your system, which came from junk food and other unhealthy ailments and replace it with natural, organic compounds found in fruits and vegetables. Another thing that must be considered during a diet like this is the intake of liquids, which is critical if you want this diet to succeed and lose weight quickly!

How you should get started!

Before starting to follow this program you have to be sure that your body is ready for it by consulting your nutritionist. He/ she is the only one that can assure you if you can or cannot use this diet. Your nutritionist can provide you with advice on how you should start and what you should eat to reach your objectives. Whenever you start a weight loss program, you should listen to your body! In some strenuous occasions, experiencing dizziness may be normal, but headaches, fatigue and other severe symptoms are not typical. If you feel frail, you should see your doctor or nutritionist right away and stop your cleanse if they advise you to do so.

Carbohydrates are an essential part of any balanced diet as they are the primary source of energy for the body. Without carbohydrates, the body will not be able to function properly. However, carbohydrates are one food group that has a lot of variations and should be consumed with a lot of thought put into the food choices to avoid possible weight gain.

There are two groups of carbohydrates; simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates provide the body with the very basic form of carbohydrates: sugar also referred to as glucose. This glucose is the body’s source of energy used to fuel internal body processes. Sugar can be found in fruits, candy and refined sugars like white sugar. Complex carbohydrates are referred to as starches and are present in corn, legumes, starchy vegetables like potatoes, and grain products like bread and macaroni. These complex carbs take a longer time to be broken down to glucose by the body and tend to stay in the stomach for a longer period.

The problem with carbohydrate consumption is that these get digested very quickly, allowing a feeling of hunger only a few hours after a meal. That poses a problem for weight loss programs where staying fuller for longer is of high importance. When carbohydrates are eaten, they are quickly converted to glucose form. When blood glucose levels rise, insulin is released by the pancreas to stabilise it. This hormone that is responsible for body fat storage converts glucose into glycogen to be stored in the liver and muscles. The human body is only capable of storing a limited amount of glycogen; the rest of the glucose is converted into body fat.

The insulin level in the blood does not go down as fast as the glucose level. Instead, it lingers in the blood, which causes sugar cravings. This sugar-insulin cycle is the main reason for sugar craving and is one of the strongest causes of weight gain. The process of weight loss requires that the body use stored fat as fuel. Cutting back on carbohydrates is therefore essential to the process of weight loss.

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