To lose weight is not enough to eat healthy food: you also have to stop eating the insane
It is common to start a diet to lose weight and include more fruits and vegetables, more seeds, more whole grains but not pay attention to the intake of poor quality food, for example, alcoholic beverages, cold meats, sausages or others. However, this strategy does not help much, because to lose weight is not enough to eat healthy food but you also have to stop eating the insane.
Healthy foods, important but not enough
To lose weight it is of great importance to include foods of good nutritional or healthy quality , because they offer vitamins, minerals, water, fiber and others that can help us lose weight while taking care of our health .
However, if we only add fruits and vegetables, seeds and fish to our diet but do not subtract chips, soft drinks and trinkets, we will be adding good quality calories that can contribute to our health but are not enough to lose weight.
Many unhealthy foods can displace the consumption of healthy foods and therefore, we may not reach the appropriate levels of intake if we continue to preserve ultra-processed foods of poor quality in our diet .
On the other hand, unhealthy foods such as most ultra-processed foods with added sugars , trans fats , refined flours or palm oil , can encourage addictive behavior by producing a pleasurable response and not satisfy our body, therefore, Unhealthy foods need to be reduced if we want to lose weight while protecting our health.
Beyond the calories, it is essential to take care of the quality of the food at the moment of losing weight , therefore we should not only include those foods that favor satiety and a quality diet , but also, pay attention to those unhealthy foods that can hinder our goal of losing kilos .
The amount also matters
The key to losing weight is to replace unhealthy foods with foods of better nutritional quality and that in some way or another help us lose weight, otherwise we will be adding healthy foods but we will have more calories and therefore, more food in the daily diet.
Although quality is of great importance, quantity also matters and as we have said, unhealthy foods do not favor the control of what we eat but can encourage us to eat more and more.
Likewise, eating all kinds of unhealthy foods (together with healthy or not) to “compensate” after eating only fruits and vegetables or drinking smoothies and juices detox in nothing benefits our health, since it does not help us achieve a balanced, sustainable diet in time and above all, free of products or based on real food .
But most importantly, trying to compensate for the excesses of unhealthy foods by eating very light and healthy foods or drinking only liquids afterwards is not a healthy eating behavior and does not favor the change of habits , hence incorporating healthy foods is not enough to lose weight, but it is also necessary to reduce the insane and control quantities.
The most recommended healthy replacements
If you want to achieve your goal of losing weight without neglecting health, it is essential to incorporate healthy foods and reduce the insane , therefore, we recommend using the first to replace the second. Some examples that you can put into practice are:
| PROCESSED AND ULTRA-PROCESSED | RECOMMENDED REPLACEMENTS |
|---|---|
| Mayonnaise, cream, commercial butter | Tahini, homemade peanut or almond cream , hummus, tzatziki or tapenade , avocado puree or guacamole. |
| Nutella and commercial sweets | Nutella without sugar or palm oil and fruit jam without sugar |
| Cured or semi-cured cheeses | Fresh cheese, cottage cheese or tofu |
| Commercial cereals | oats , quinoa , quinoa in flakes or inflated , amaranth , kañiwa , brown rice, bran or wheat germ |
| Cookies and industrial pastries | Homemade cookies without added sugar , without refined flours or else, home-made sugar-free pastry |
| Potato chips | Peanuts or other roasted nuts not fried or salted, seeds or toasted seeds, or spicy chickpeas roasted in the oven. |
| Cold cuts, sausages and frozen breaded | Lean meats cooked at home, fish canned to the natural or cooked at home or breaded and homemade batters. |
| Candies and sweets | Dates, raisins, peach apricots, fresh fruits. |
As we can see, it is not only important to eat healthy foods but also to reduce the unhealthy ones in our diet to lose weight, protecting health and favoring an effective change of habits.
