fitness

Are right food choices essential for successful weight loss?

By Abhishek Singh

2019-06-07

Food for weight loss

A wise man once said that food is like money. It should be taken so as to work only in your favor. Yes, the right food delivery in the long run. It’s no secret that the food choices you make today help impact your future health. It also poses a great impact on your weight. If you consume the same number of calories your body can burn, your weight stays balanced. And as you start more than your body can burn off, you start becoming obese. Since it is all the game of calories it is important to take note of the type of calories you are taking. Or in other words the food choices you are making. Believe it or not, these impact your weight loss programs to a large extent.

Overview to successful weight loss

When you take a diet, it does matter where your nutrients are coming from. Are those from artificial junk food or from natural nutrient-rich sources. And then comes the questions of when and how often you should take these calories. How can eat well-balanced during morning impact more in controlling weight? How does having fiber-rich food at night gives a boost to your weight loss program? All these questions depend directly or indirectly on our food choices.

Several types of research have been done on our food choices to date. Medical science is always predicting the patterns that can prevent us from diseases such as diabetes, stroke and heart diseases. You will be surprised to know that many food types who are good for controlling the onset of such diseases are beneficial in weight loss. The vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts, yogurt, and milk are wight-controlling elements.

Alternatively, many junk foods increase the risk of certain diseases. Many experts believe that calorie is a calorie in any senses. Hence, if you wish to lose weight, you should avoid consuming more calories for sure. This shall go hand in hand with exercising and physical workout.

However, various other researches have also been done to analyze food patterns that may keep calories in balanced form while helping people lose weight over time. All of this shows evidence of how food choice affects our weight-loss efforts. Let’s discuss some more related points in this piece of writing:

Importance of micronutrients for weight loss

The main micronutrients that the human body consumes on a daily basis are fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. If you are eating a controlled amount of diet, the micronutrient percentage might not matter much for weight loss. There have been various studies conducted in which subjects chose to eat one of the three micronutrients as per their convenience. Results showed how some people got benefits due to higher protein consumption while others did not show any such sign due to lower consumption of proteins.

Hence, the difference was noted for disease prevention. however, the quantity is not much of use in terms of weight loss. Rather, the quality of micronutrients matters. This diet message might not apply if you are looking for weight gain, but stands true when you look to shed some pounds.

The relation between fat and weight

When you gain weight you become fat. While this is a term in layman language, scientifically, it means that fat is a sign of being overweight. Losing fat can be the key to a healthy weight and even good health. In the last three decades, the calorie percentage derived from fat in people’s diets has gone down in the US. But an amazing part is that the obesity rates have inclined like never before. So what does this mean? it probably shows how we are making the wrong choices of fat-rich food items.

Clinical trails observe how a low-fat diet may not affect your weight loss programs as compared to following a moderate or high-fat diet routine. Study shows how volunteers following high or moderate-fat diet lose weight which is equal to those who followed low-fat diets. When we talk about diseases, low-fat diets usually do not offer any special benefits.

The problem with the low-fat diet is far more complex than we can imagine. Most of the low-fat items are high in carbohydrate content. They are digested rapidly. These include eatables such as white rice and white sandwich bread. These diets may increase weight gain risks and might also improve the chances of heart diseases and other conditions such as diabetes.

Medical science teaches us about good health and fat relation. The type of fat you are consuming is more important th an the amount. This is true for weight control methods. If you consume empty fats such as energy drinks, soft drinks, cookies, pastries, donuts, sodas, etc, you are doing no good for your weight gain attempt. Increased consumption of such unhealthy trans fats is always linked with weight gain. However, if you consume more polyunsaturated or monosaturated fats, you can balance your diet easily

Protein and weight

Higher protein contributes towards a healthy weight gain. But you will be amazed to know that there exist some benefit of having healthy protein as well. These benefits are found in short-term trails In longer duration studies, the diets rich in protein perform as effective as other types of diets. These diets are low in carbs and high in fat. Hence, it might become difficult to know the accurate benefits of eating high amounts of proteins. Also, it is tough to compare the perks with carb or fat-rich diets. Besides all, here are some benefits that will make you include proteins in your diet for a good weight loss:

When you consume protein, you might feel fuller quickly. This means that your appetite will be satisfied with small calorie intake. This is usually common when you consume whey protein supplements.
Proteins provide a good thermic effect. This is because your body required more energy to metabolize protein. Energy is also required to store protein as compared to other micronutrients. This can help increase the energy burn of our body which in other words and calorie burning capacity helping further in weight loss.
By consuming regular proteins, you can improve your body composition. The protein-rich diet helps in sustaining the lean muscle and shed those extra fat muscles. This boosts the energy-burning capacity of our body.

If you are taking a diet that is rich in protein and short of carbs, you can improve your blood lipid profiles to a great extent. This also helps increase the flow of metabolic enzymes of our body. Protein may help prevent high blood pressure or blood sugar levels. While some proteins are always beneficial than others, most of them come with health benefits.

You can always choose the best ones like milk, yogurt, eggs, cheese, seeds, nuts, beans, legumes, etc.

To make a great food choice, you can substitute red or processed meat with beans, fish, poultry or nuts. This will avoid the chances of heart diseases or diabetes conditions. The diet regime may also give a boost to your weight loss efforts. IN a study at Harvard School of Public, researchers analyzed the diet patterns of 120,000 women and men for 2 decades. They observed how tiny changes can alter weight gain over time. People eating red and processed meat gained more weight every four years. People who ate nuts and healthy fats gained half a pound less in comparison to the respective group.

Carbohydrates

The third micronutrient and the most common one is the carbohydrates. Scientists believe that you can benefit from food that is lower in carbs and higher in proteins. If you are looking at the positive side of this micronutrient, it can help in preventing certain diseases, given the quality of the source is natural and better.

Some of the examples of common and easily digested carbs are grains, white rice, white pasta, breakfast cereals, sugary drinks, potatoes, and white bread. Most of these might seem good to taste but have a high-level of glycemic content. Such types of choices may cause a rapid increase in our blood sugar level. This, in turn, causes a spike in our appetite which leads to overeating. This results in obvious weight gain. Such weight gain is linked with diabetes and cardiac problems as well.

Foods rich in carbohydrates should be consumed in a limited amount and with good quality value. Carb is essential as they help our body in gaining the required energy for doing training and exercises.

Health benefits of weight loss

Right food choices are always helpful in sustaining a healthy body. The benefits go beyond just weight loss. Here we discuss the major benefits you can enjoy if you are making the right food choices:

Weight loss- this is the obvious reason you should try to eat healthily. Losing weight also helps reduce the risks of certain conditions that arise due to obesity. Eating healthy will allow your body to burn more calories while eating less healthy ones which causes weight loss
Management of diabetes- making the right food choices will help your body in balancing blood glucose levels. While delaying the complications of diabetes, it will also keep a check on your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Cancer prevention-Healthy food choices keep obesity at bay and decrease the chances of developing cancer. When your weight in the normal range, you are less prone to cancer, which is proven medically as well. Food items such as vegetables, fruits, and nuts can also act against cancer symptoms.
Stronger teeth and bones- when you are taking a well-balanced diet, you are consuming an adequate amount of calcium and magnesium. These elements are necessary for stronger teeth and bones. Having strong bones is vital in getting a good muscle mass and it ensures that even if you lose weight, your body skeleton remains strong.
Good mood- making food choices for food can elevate your mood. There has been resulting evidence of how our mood is connected with what we are eating. If you consume a diet high in glycemic content, you can get prone to fatigue and depression easily. On contrary to this, a healthful diet may make you feel happier while keeping stress and depression at bay.
Improve memory function- by making the right food choices, you can prevent dementia. Your cognitive function also improves. Diet rich in vitamin D, E and C also do wonders for increasing your memory. The Omega-3 fatty acids present in food also help improve our brainpower. You can also look for food options rich in flavonoids and polyphenol that act as a brain booster. Mediterranean diet also contains all these elements.
For good sleep- when you eat well, your body functions according to normal human nature. Also, various adverse lifestyle factors can disrupt your sleep patterns. While avoiding harmful substances such as caffeine or alcohol, you can improve the quality of your sleep. This also avoids the risk of sleeping diseases such as apnea caused by blockage of airways during the night.