Best Weight Loss Foods to Keep You In Shape

When it comes to selecting weight loss foods, you may not know where to begin. It seems like most foods today promote their health benefits, and diet products are everywhere! Yet, how can you determine which will help you shed those excess pounds, and which will sabotage your weight loss efforts? Becoming informed about this topic is the only way to be successful in this endeavor. To that end, let’s examine which foods are best for you to choose in more detail below.

Is Fat Really the Key?

When you walk down the aisles of the supermarket, you’ll likely see many products which brag about being low in fat. Reduced fat items sound perfect if you are trying to lose a few inches off your midsection. However, cutting fat out of your diet doesn’t guarantee weight loss, as these food items often compensate with other ingredients. For example, while a reduced fat cracker will have less lipid content, the carbohydrate load is still high. Often more sugar is added too, to make up for the taste lost by removing the fat.

What’s the Answer?

So, rather than reaching for weight loss foods which are manufactured, you are usually better off buying ones in their natural form instead. This ensures that they are correctly balanced, with both their water and fiber content being preserved. Fresh fruits and vegetables are wonderful options, for a variety of different reasons. First of all, their high water content means they are more filling, so you’ll be less inclined to overeat. In fact, research has shown that people often misread their thirst mechanism, as being hunger instead. Rather than reaching for a glass of water, you may be tempted to eat foods which have some liquid within them. Obviously, eating solid food when all your body needs is hydration, isn’t a sound recipe for weight loss! After all, you’ll be consuming calories you really don’t need, so your body will have to store them as fat. This is why fruits and vegetables are such a terrific choice – they are low in calories, and they have a high amount of water included in every bite.

Why Fiber is Important?

Produce has high fiber content too, which will also work to keep you feeling full and satisfied. This will stave off your hunger pangs, even when dieting. Therefore, you’ll be able to eat fewer calories overall, yet not feel like you are starving! In addition, fiber slows down your digestion, enabling your body to cope with the influx of calories. Highly processed foods with their fiber removed can be digested very quickly, which causes your blood sugar to spike. When this happens, insulin must be secreted by your pancreas, to prevent permanent damage from occurring. High blood glucose can cause a variety of different problems, including nerve damage if it happens consistently. For this reason, insulin’s only task is to sweep sugar out of your bloodstream, and into your cells. However, if you eat foods which digest so quickly that your body can’t keep up, insulin will instruct these extra calories to be stored in the form of fat! In essence, eating highly refined foods with no fiber content is the perfect way to gain extra weight.

Fruits and vegetables don’t have this problem, as they tend to digest slowly. This causes the energy which they contain to be released on a gradual basis, so your blood glucose level remains stable. Eating these often will prevent the sugar and insulin cycle mentioned above from kicking in, making it far easier to lose weight. Therefore, the freshest produce is terrific weight loss foods, and you should add a few servings to every meal.

Protein Helps Too!

Yet, these aren’t your only choices, when it comes to losing weight. Lean protein is excellent too, as it has several unique properties. First, it can help to repair and build muscle, which is useful if you are exercising to shed excess pounds. As lean muscle mass requires calories for maintenance, adding more muscle to your frame will increase your resting metabolism. However, it is the second benefit of protein which is by far the most useful, as it requires calories to digest. This is true of all foods, but protein is much higher on the scale than most. Experts estimate that a full third of proteins caloric content is expanded in the digestion process alone, meaning you’re essentially getting a gastric workout with every bite!

Adding a serving of lean protein to every meal ensures that you can eat more, while still getting fewer calories overall. Essentially, you are able to eat 33 percent more food, without adding a single calorie to your diet! How does this work? If you were to eat a ground turkey patty, which was 300 calories in total, your body would only receive 200 calories after digestion was completed. As you can see, this represents a significant advantage over other foods, as protein actually helps you to lose weight.

Go Nuts!

The final entry on the list of good weight loss foods is most types of nuts. These little powerhouses store a lot of calories and fat, so you have to be careful. However, they are full of healthy lipids, which have been proven to protect your heart. Just eating a small handful every day can cut your risk of heart disease almost in half, so it is worth your time to add them to your diet! Yet, how will eating nuts help you to lose weight?

While they are calorie dense, they are also very filling. By consuming a small amount, you’ll give your system the lipids it craves. This means you’ll be less likely to eat more of other foods, to compensate for the lack of beneficial fats in your diet. You will feel fuller throughout the day as well, meaning you may be able to eat smaller portions at every meal too. Overall, the calories which nuts contain will be more than made up by the lower amount you will eat daily instead. Therefore, if you’re trying to tip back the scale, it’s a great idea to grab some walnuts or almonds as a healthy snack.

Conclusion

All of these options will help you in your efforts to shed those excess pounds. Fresh produce, lean protein, and high-quality nuts are all excellent choices for you to add to your diet. When you eat these types of foods, you will have more success, and keeping the weight off will be easier too. You can also add weight loss supplements e.g Phen375 UK, to speed up the weight loss process. For all of these reasons, these are the best weight loss foods available to you, as they are the most effective!

Author Bio:

Elin Bly is a passionate health and fitness blogger cum editor.She loves to write about latest trends on weight loss, body building, and diet.