Lifetime maintenance: now that you’ve lost the weight, keep it off!
Managing your weight can be a balancing act. Learning to minimize old eating behaviors and incorporating new ones can be very challenging. The best way to get the nutrition that your body needs while at the same time managing your appetite, eating behaviors, and weight should be a step-by- step process. Adding more whole foods to your diet, while also cutting your sugar intake, improving the quality of fat at each meal and choosing lean sources of protein will make maintaining your weight easier than you probably ever thought possible.
Food is medicine and the “whole” diet counts.
Only in recent years has our country seen a dramatic shift to a heavier and more unhealthy society. Looking back at what our ancestors ate will help us to understand why they were much leaner and healthier. For several thousand years, our ancestors survived on a high carbohydrate and low fat diet. They ate their carbohydrate in the form of beans, vegetables and whole cereal grains. They ate their sugars in the form of fibrous fruits and berries. Food preparation was a simple process: grinding food between stones and cooking it over open fire. The result of this process was that all food was digested and absorbed slowly and the usual blood sugar rise was gradual and prolonged. This diet was ideal as far as their bodies were concerned because it provided slow-release energy that helped to delay hunger and provided fuel for working muscles long after the meal was eaten.
Today, our food is processed and stripped of the essential nutrients and fiber that once helped our ancestors to have energy, stay lean and healthy. Food processing strips vitamins, minerals, and fiber from food, and typically adds fat (saturated), sugar, and salt. Foods characterized as “whole” or “natural” have not been processed, and retain high levels of nutrients that are essential for normal body functioning and feelings of well being. The types of foods usually associated with ‘whole foods’ include whole grains, legumes (beans), fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds and soy products (soybeans, tofu, miso, tempeh).
Fresh foods are better for several reasons.
Processing is usually done by removing the parts of the food that contain most of the nutrients, for example, the bran and germ from grains and the skin from potatoes and fruits. More nutrients are lost when these foods are canned. For instance, canning combines water and heat, sometimes with added salt, to preserve the food, but at the same time water soluble nutrients are lost and many nutrients are not heat stable so their activity is drastically reduced. In addition, sugar and fat are added to these foods to make them taste good. Most processed foods contain more calories per gram than whole foods, so the calories can quickly add up if you choose to eat processed foods without controlling your portions.
A recent study, which is one of the first of its kind, indicates that women who eat a wide variety of healthy foods may significantly lower their risk of dying from such things as cancer, heart disease and stroke. Study results found that a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low fat meat and dairy products reduced a woman’s chance of dying up to 30% compared to those with unhealthy eating habits.
This study is just one example of how achieving good health can be simple. Instead of getting caught up in trying to select foods for specific nutrients or fat levels, instead, eat a wide variety of healthy, whole or fresh foods. Read on to understand why quality matters and to learn more easy ways to improve the quality of your diet. Not only will you be leaner but you can count on a healthier you as well.
Quality Matters
The key to improving the quality of your diet is to improve the nutrient density of your diet. This is best accomplished by increasing the amount of whole foods that you eat. What exactly is nutrient density and how can it help you lose weight? Nutritional density expresses the quantities of important nutrients a food contains as compared to the amount of food energy (calories) it delivers. So, a food that is low in calories and high in nutrients is said to have a high nutritional density, while a food that is high in calories and contains only moderate or small amounts of nutrients is said to have a low nutritional density. An individual learning to modify food intake and incorporate healthy foods into the diet wants to feel satisfied and healthy while also cutting down on excess calories. Put simply, by eating nutritionally dense foods, you automatically remove excess calories from your diet and at the same time you won’t feel hungry because you are not unnecessarily restricting your dietary intake. But, you will be eliminating things like excess fat and sugar, and adding more dietary fiber, which can easily contribute to dramatic improvements in your weight and everyday feelings of well being.
