10 tips on how to lose weight healthily

Tip 1: A simple rice cooker soup for a complete meal

Busy modern people often say that they don’t have time to cook. At this time, I would strongly recommend that you make good use of the rice cooker so that you can easily get all the nutrients needed for a meal. The ingredients must include staple food, protein and more vegetables, put them together in an electric cooker with water and steam them into soup.

The staple food can be starchy root vegetables such as sweet potato, taro, potato, yam, pumpkin... etc. Animal protein can be either chicken legs or pork ribs, for example, corn, bamboo shoots and pork ribs chicken soup, yam and health-preserving mushroom chicken soup (contains carbohydrates, protein, and vegetables); you can also stew bamboo shoots and pork ribs into porridge, or have mushroom chicken soup with a bowl of brown rice or noodles. If you want to eat lighter, just reduce the amount of starch and increase the amount of vegetables. It is simple and easy to do.

Tip 2: Keep the amount constant

In the weekly menu I designed, although the total calories per day are controlled within 1200 calories, the amount of ingredients used each day is still different. Therefore, the three meals of the same day can be eaten at any time. For those who want to implement a weight loss plan accurately and effectively, it is best not to change the menu on different days. For example, the content and weight of lunch and dinner on the first day can be swapped, and the braised chicken with mushrooms for lunch can be swapped with the steamed grouper with loofah for dinner, but it cannot be replaced with the lunch of the second day.

If you just want to adjust your daily diet to a healthier and more balanced one, it is fine to choose breakfast, lunch and dinner on different days to match them, and you can still achieve the effect of controlling your weight.

Tip 3: Dairy products, low-fat ones are best!

The menu for the first and second days contains milk, while the menu for the third day contains both eggs and milk. People who are allergic to eggs and milk can choose the menu for Day 4 to Day 5. Nowadays, people generally do not get enough sunlight, and their bodies have insufficient vitamin D. Milk is a very good source of vitamin D. However, whether you are drinking dairy products or making dishes containing dairy products, it is recommended to use low-fat dairy products; and vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, so there must be an appropriate amount of fat in the diet to obtain vitamin D!

Tip 4: Eat 2 servings of fruit a day but don’t overdo it

Although fruits contain water and fiber and seem healthy, the calories contained in them are considerable if you eat too much, especially some fruits which are quite high in calories! Therefore, the daily fruit intake should be limited to two servings. If you add fruit to dishes or as a side dish in your three meals, it should be counted as one serving. For example, if you have kiwi yogurt containing one portion of kiwi for breakfast on the second day, you can only consume one more portion of fruit (such as pineapple) on the same day; or if you drink vegetable and fruit juice containing two portions of fruit for snack on the fourth day, you should not consume any more fruit on that day.

A serving of fruit is equivalent to the size of a girl's fist, or the amount that fills a rice bowl after cutting. It provides 0 calories. The following fruits are equivalent to:

‧1 orange or tangerine (about the size of a tennis ball)

‧1 small apple (about the size of a tennis ball)

‧1 green date (about the size of a tennis ball) or 2 regular-sized dates

‧1/2 Thai guava

‧1/2 banana

‧1.5 kiwi fruits

‧About 10 to 13 grapes or cherries

‧20 cherry tomatoes

‧10 small strawberries

‧Cut watermelon, papaya, mango, and cantaloupe into dices, about one bowl

Tip 5: Light seasoning to avoid high calories

Sugar, soy sauce (paste), oyster sauce, ketchup, chili sauce... and other seasonings all have considerable calories and should not be added at will during diet and cooking during the weight loss period. It is recommended to use more spices, such as ginger, onion, garlic, coriander, garlic, star anise, parsley, basil, black pepper, white pepper, cinnamon, cloves, thyme, rosemary, lemon salt, mustard, pepper, five-spice, chili, lemon leaves, cumin powder, lemongrass, and turmeric powder to enhance the flavor of the dishes.

The soup base in the menu can also be made by boiling chicken bones, pork bones, or pork ribs with water. If you want less oil, you can remove the fat after the soup has cooled. Alternatively, you can steam the onion, add some water and use a juicer to blend it into a paste. Put it into an ice cube storage compartment to make small onion ice cubes. Use them to make soups or stir-fry dishes. They will have a natural sweet taste and can replace MSG, fresh chicken essence, etc. This can reduce sodium intake and avoid eating too much salt, which will cause edema that is difficult to eliminate.

Tip 6: Use less raw vegetables and cook them before eating

Most lettuces are sweet, crisp and have a good taste, usually because they contain more water and their fibers are tender and fine. For those who want to increase gastrointestinal motility, eating more vegetables containing crude fiber is the best choice. Therefore, I would recommend eating vegetables as much as possible after being heated and cooked.

Moreover, women generally have a cold constitution. In addition, modern people lead a sedentary lifestyle with poor circulation. Eating raw vegetables too often is not conducive to metabolism and may make the cold worse, affecting the body's functions. In addition, we would like to remind everyone to choose seasonal fruits and vegetables for cooking, which are not only cheap but also provide the best nutrition. In addition to observing the types of fruits and vegetables on the market, you may also refer to the website of the Council of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Department, which provides a clear overview of the seasonal fruits and vegetables of the twelve months.

Tip 7: Drink the right beverages and you won’t be afraid of gaining weight

During the weight loss period, you can drink beverages besides plain water, but you still have to consider the calories. Black date juice and vinegar drinks are relatively high in calories and are beneficial to gastrointestinal function. You can drink them in moderation and choose commercially available products. However, these drinks on the market usually contain sugar, so you can only drink 100 to 200 c.c. a day. The ideal way is to look at the label and then decide how much to drink. As for fruit vinegar drinks, no matter whether it is fruit vinegar, mulberry vinegar, kumquat vinegar, roselle vinegar, red date vinegar... any flavor is fine, and the actual drinking amount should refer to the label.

It is recommended to drink beverages within one hour before meals. You can also add ingredients containing dietary fiber such as mountain tapioca pearls, psyllium, chia seeds, and basil seeds. These foods don't have any special taste themselves, but they can increase a good feeling of fullness. It is important to note that they are all water-soluble, so remember to drink plenty of boiled water at the same time. You can make a large pot of it and drink it slowly throughout the day, or you can drink 500c.c. 30 minutes before each meal to increase your sense of fullness.

【Daily Drink Selection】

Roselle tea, cassia seed tea, plum tea, herbal tea, wolfberry tea, chrysanthemum tea, chamomile mint tea, red dates, wolfberry and American ginseng, rose tea, lemonade, black bean water, barley tea, green tea, black coffee, Pu'er tea, Rooibos tea, burdock tea. You can also choose drinks according to your personal constitution or the advice of a Chinese medicine practitioner.

★The above drinks are all sugar-free and very low in calories, so you don’t have to worry about gaining weight when drinking them as afternoon tea!

Tip 8: Alternate ingredients

A customer once saw the red dates, wolfberries and American ginseng tea I designed and asked, "Will red dates and wolfberries make you feel too hot when you drink them?" If you have this concern based on your physical constitution, then you can remove the red dates and wolfberries and just use American ginseng to make tea. Although most of the drinks on the menu can be selected and matched by yourself, it is best not to drink cold types such as chrysanthemum tea every day. Regarding the hot or cold nature of tea or food, in fact, as long as you alternate them every day, for example, change a drink every two or three days, you basically don’t need to worry too much about it affecting your health.

Tip 9: Eat sweets correctly

I often come across people who need to lose weight having this misconception: "Shouldn't you be forbidden to eat sugary sweets when losing weight?" Sugar is not guilty! Including sugar, which the body uses to produce energy, in your regular meals will definitely not ruin your weight loss plan. For example, having a bowl of slightly sweet mung bean soup or drinking sweetened oatmeal milk for breakfast is OK. The problem is that most people treat desserts as snacks, or have high-fat cakes and biscuits as afternoon tea. As a result of the extra intake, the calories are of course exceeded!

In addition, I would like to remind everyone: there is no need to replace regular sugar with sugar substitutes. It is feasible to consume sugar substitutes for weight loss in the short term; however, once sugar substitutes are used instead of regular sugar for a long time, it will produce psychological and physiological dissatisfaction reactions, and you will end up eating more sweets. Or if you mistakenly believe that drinks are made with sugar substitutes and have no calories, and unconsciously pair them with a high-calorie cake as compensation, then you will not be able to achieve any real weight loss benefits.

Tip 10: Make good use of similar foods to make changes and lose weight every day

As long as you follow the planning principles of this menu and use the same weight of various ingredients to replace the same food category, you can increase dietary variation without worrying about the risk of gaining weight again. for example:

A 0-calorie staple food = 1/4 bowl of dry rice or barley = half a bowl of porridge = half a small sweet potato;

A 55-calorie serving of meat = one ounce (1/3 the size of a palm) of chicken breast or fish = one ounce of tenderloin or lean beef.

Therefore, people who want to lose weight according to the menu are best to make food substitutions and change ingredients of different colors and tastes. As long as the portion size and seasoning are not increased arbitrarily and oily cooking methods are avoided, the weight loss goal can be achieved quickly. Basically, this menu is not recommended for people with chronic diseases such as type 1 diabetes and dialysis patients, as they must consider multiple health factors; as well as growing and developing children under 1 year old, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers, who have special needs in terms of nutrients and calorie supply. As for other groups, including those with type 2 diabetes who need to lose weight (excluding those taking insulin), they can follow this principle for a long time.

★Each recipe in the book has a fixed portion, because it is a menu specially planned for people who want to lose weight. The specific recommended values ​​can give everyone a standard for practice. If you have a BMI greater than 30, the amount of staple food (such as noodles and rice) can be increased from 100g to 150g, and the amount of meat protein can be adjusted from 0g to 0g. After 2 to 4 weeks to allow your metabolism to stabilize, you can slowly return to the amount on this recommended menu.

★After changing from the original diet to this menu, some people may feel that they don’t feel very full after eating at first, but please stick to it! When you feel slightly full, congratulations! The fat will start to burn. Continue this menu for about two weeks and your stomach will gradually shrink, and then you’ll notice: Oh my god! Before I knew it, I had developed a bird's stomach!

This article is from Shimao Publishing's "Good Intestines, Natural Slimming - Nutritionists Teach You How to Develop a Slim Body Every Day, No Constipation, No Weight Gain"