Can’t eat pizza to lose weight? 8 tips for eating Italian food without stress

Maintaining a graceful figure is the lifelong dream of many modern people, and the golden rule for successful weight loss is nothing more than the four-word mantra of "eat less and exercise more"! But if you want to have a good figure, do you have to abstain from certain foods and lose the opportunity to enjoy delicious food? Doctors say that as long as the right method is used, people who want to lose weight can eat delicious food without any burden!

Is starving the only way to lose weight? 8 medical tips to eat Italian food

In his book "Half-Sugar Cut, Lose 9 Kilograms in 1 Year: [Pressure-Free Practical Version of Sugar Cutting Diet]", Japanese gastroenterologist Kijuro Nomura mentioned that if you want to lose weight successfully, it does not mean you have to give up the opportunity to enjoy delicious food. In fact, as long as you are smart about being picky about food and master the following 8 eating tips, you can easily enjoy Italian cuisine, which is famous for its starchy staples such as pizza and pasta.

Tip 1: When choosing Italian cuisine, the first key is not to order a full meal

A full Italian meal usually comes with appetizers, salad, steak, pasta and dessert, which is very filling. Sometimes, pasta and pizza appear at the same time, resulting in excessive sugar intake.

For this reason, the key to choosing Italian cuisine is "a la carte" rather than "full meal". In this way, you can choose more leafy vegetables, meat, and fish dishes by ordering them a la carte, effectively controlling your carbohydrate intake and reducing your sugar intake.

Tip 2: Choose salad or raw cured meat as an appetizer to inhibit sugar absorption

If you really have to order a full meal, it is recommended to make some clever choices in the appetizers, such as lettuce salad or raw cured meats of fish and shellfish. The dietary fiber in the salad and the vinegar in the raw marinated meat both have the effect of slowing down the digestion and absorption of food. If you can eat some of these foods before eating pasta or pizza, it will be very helpful for the metabolism of sugar.

Tip 3: Eat only a small piece of bread before a meal and dip it in olive oil

Most Italian restaurants provide unlimited bread before meals, which makes us often accidentally eat bread all the time; however, bread has a very high sugar content and is a strictly prohibited food in the sugar-free diet. Although the restaurant provides it for free, try to refuse to eat it! If you really want to eat bread, remember to only eat one piece and dip it in a little olive oil to slow down the absorption of sugar.

Tip 4: Choose vegetable soup to increase satiety

Why not drink soup before eating the main meal to increase your sense of fullness! In particular, the Italian cuisine is very famous for its "Italian vegetable soup", which contains a lot of vegetables and other dietary fiber, which can make people feel full and avoid overeating staple food. However, some Italian soups contain high-sugar ingredients such as potatoes and short pasta, so please be careful when choosing soups.

Tip 5: Choose thin crust pizza, red sauce, or spicy pasta

In principle, pizza and pasta have high sugar content, so we hope that everyone can avoid eating them as much as possible; but if we want to eat them anyway, we can use some techniques to make clever choices and reduce sugar intake.

For example, choose thin-crust pizza, which is relatively low in sugar, and choose spicy and vegetable-rich pasta. Because the dietary fiber and spicy ingredients in vegetables can slow down the absorption of sugar and help burn calories.

Tip 6: Choose red wine with less sugar and more polyphenols for dinner

If you want to enjoy a glass of wine while eating, choose red wine over white or rosé. Because red wine has a low sugar content and is rich in resveratrol. Resveratrol is a polyphenol found in the skin of red grapes that prevents visceral fat accumulation and helps reduce body fat.

Tip 7: Choose Italian handmade gelato instead of cake or fruit

Although fruits may seem natural, the fructose they contain is absorbed faster than sugar and is high in sugar. Therefore, considering that oil has the effect of inhibiting the rise in blood sugar levels, it may be better to choose cake as a dessert rather than fruit.

However, cakes or tiramisu also use a lot of sugar, and the sponge cake used as the base is a carbohydrate and is also high in sugar. For this reason, if you want to eat dessert anyway, try to choose Italian handmade gelato with a slightly lower sugar content!

Tip 8: Do not add sugar to coffee or tea after meals

After the meal, drinking a cup of black tea or coffee and enjoying it with dessert is the authentic Italian dining style. Although using black tea or coffee to clear the taste in your mouth is a good method, it is not good if you add sugar. So drink black coffee or unsweetened black tea instead! If you really are not used to drinking it, you can add lemon or milk to enhance the flavor, which is also a good alternative.