Control your weight well and stay healthy without worries. 4 dietary tips to help you lose fat easily

Food is the most important thing for people, and eating delicious food is one of the greatest pleasures in life. However, the modern diet is full of too many temptations and nutritional problems, which lead to many chronic diseases. Especially for people who need to control their weight, it takes great willpower to resist the temptation of hand-shaken drinks, the call of fried chicken, fried chicken, and scallion pancakes. Junk food in convenience stores is a new force that cannot be underestimated.

From a knowledge perspective, what effects do overweight and obesity have on health? Studies have shown that metabolic syndromes such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hyperuricemia. Gout, coronary heart disease, degenerative arthritis, polycystic ovary syndrome, infertility, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, colorectal cancer and sleep apnea are all directly related to obesity. Therefore, it is particularly important to maintain a healthy weight and good living habits.

According to the World Health Organization's recommendation, the body mass index (BMI) is used to determine the degree of obesity. The higher the BMI index, the higher the chance of suffering from obesity-related diseases.

So once you know you are overweight or obese, how do you lose weight? When it comes to weight control, it’s as simple as the well-known phrase “eat less, exercise more”. It’s just a slogan that everyone can say, but it’s easier said than done. What we have to strive for is to integrate the concept of eating less and exercising more into our daily lives. With good living and eating habits, it will not be difficult to lose weight and shed fat in the long run! Here are four concepts. As long as you keep them in mind and put them into practice, you don’t have to worry about accumulating fat on your body and affecting your health, even as the year draws to a close.

Eat healthy and lose weight easily with four tips

The first step: 70% full

There is a saying: "Eat until you are 70% full, and you will live a healthy life." The wisdom of our ancestors can now be verified by scientific research. According to nutritionist Liu Yili, various experiments in recent years have emphasized that "eating too much" will put a burden on the body, while "eating 70% full" can improve the body's metabolism and delay body aging.

A monkey experiment published in the journal Science found after 20 years of observation that monkeys that only ate until they were 70% full looked much younger than monkeys that ate too much every day. They had more hair and were more energetic, and their skin was smoother and more lustrous. Their lifespan was also longer when tracked. By changing your eating habits and the contents of your three meals, you can successfully achieve your goal of eating until you are 70% full, while obtaining rich nutrition and improving your metabolic capacity:

●Drink more water: It speeds up the body's metabolism, and drinking a glass of water before meals can occupy part of the stomach capacity and reduce the intake of excess food.

●Concentrate on eating: Watching TV or chatting while eating will affect the brain’s awareness of fullness and cause you to unconsciously consume too much food!

● Chew slowly: Take each bite for more than 20 times. This helps saliva secretion to break down food and reduce the workload of the stomach.

●Eat more dietary fiber: Vegetables, whole grains, and mushrooms are rich in dietary fiber, which can increase satiety and aid digestion.

Tip 2: Stay away from foods high in sugar, oil, salt and calories

In order to make Taiwanese food delicious or to increase appetite, most cooking methods used are high in calories, such as thickening, frying, and heavy flavors. If you pay attention to the choice of food and follow the techniques of eating out, and combine it with exercise, you can stay away from chronic diseases, lose weight successfully, and stay healthy every day.

General Principles of Eating Out

●Be familiar with food portions: Understand and choose the correct food portions, with moderation and balance being the main consideration.

●The principle of three less and one more: less oil, less sugar, less salt, and more fiber.

●Things to note before and after a meal: plan what to eat in advance; chat more to distract from the desire to eat; reduce calorie intake after the meal.

●Four major things not to eat:

Do not eat light but high-calorie foods, such as hot dogs, potato chips, etc.

Do not eat foods with unclear calorie labels, and make good use of food labels to understand nutritional content.

Do not eat strong-tasting foods, such as sour, sweet, spicy, and salty, as they can easily increase the burden on the liver and kidneys.

Do not eat overly refined processed foods, such as those high in sugar, oil and calories.

The third trick: food substitution, eat natural, low GI food

Follow the principle of "natural is better" and stay away from processed foods. For example, pork can be cut into slices, made into meatballs, and made into cans of meat floss. Although pork has been processed, its nutrition is reduced but the calories are increased. The principle of food substitution is to replace processed "food" with natural "food" and to ingest the original form of food, rather than choosing meatballs and meat floss that only satisfy the taste buds and have a lot of additives.

"GI" (short for Glycemic index), also known as "glycemic index" in Chinese, represents the value of how fast the blood sugar rises due to the food we eat. "Low GI" foods are foods that slow down the rise in blood sugar in the body and do not cause too much insulin secretion in the body. Foreign studies have pointed out that eating more high GI foods (such as refined starchy foods, white rice, glutinous rice, white toast or white bread, etc.) will accelerate the rise in blood sugar, easily cause hunger and induce appetite, increase food intake, and promote food metabolism, produce a large amount of fat, and increase the accumulation of fat in the human blood or cells. Choose low GI foods to stabilize blood sugar, not cause hunger quickly, and reduce heat production and fat formation.

In addition to the above benefits, a low GI diet can reduce body fat and create a lean physique. Lower triglycerides, total cholesterol and bad cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein LDL); increase good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein HDL). Reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and their complications.

Tip 4: Understand the benefits of a low GI diet and find out how to implement it

● Pair it with plenty of vegetables: Increase your sense of fullness so you don’t eat too much starchy food.

●Replace white rice with whole grains such as brown rice or whole grain rice as your staple food.

●Replace sweets with fruits: Reduce unnecessary sweets intake and achieve a balanced diet.

●Soy products replace meat: Beans are rich in protein and are an excellent source of plant protein. They also contain more fiber and less fat.

As long as you keep the above principles in mind at all times, you can easily maintain your body shape, stay away from chronic diseases, and become healthier and healthier!

References

1. I Love Cooking "Dietary tips for weight control, as easy as brushing your teeth!" blog.icook.tw/posts/102350

2. Chang Chun "Practice not eating until you are full, 70% full is best" www.ttv.com.tw/lohas/view/20126

3. Common Health Magazine "Eat until you are 70% full at every meal to double your weight loss effect!" www.commonhealth.com.tw/article/article.action?nid=71358

4. National Health Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, "Obesity Prevention and Control" www.hpa.gov.tw/Pages/List.aspx?nodeid=35

5. He Jiazhen "Resist temptation and eat healthy"

6. Foster-Powell K, Holt SH, Brand-Miller JC. International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2002.1,2 Am J Clin Nutr 2002; 76(1):5–56.