Vitamin D3 and K2: Your New Allies in Weight Loss Journey

Healthy mediterranean diet

Many people embark on the weight loss journey, making an array of mistakes along the way. One of their biggest mistakes is becoming impatient and partaking in a diet that’s unhealthy and not sustainable.

For instance, the 1,200-calorie diet is not sustainable, especially if you work out regularly or you're constantly moving on the job. This diet will cause the body to slow the metabolism down and stop all weight loss. The body thinks it’s starving, and it is.

In fact, the 1,200-calorie diet can actually lead to weight gain!

The Mediterranean Diet has a well-deserved reputation in the world of weight loss and nutrition. When people decide it’s time to lose weight, they often look at the various diets that have been tried.

What makes this diet so different from any other diet like the tried-and-true Atkins Diet or Weight Watchers diet?

First off, it provides a cuisine that’s rich in flavor and colors, supporting your taste and spirit to live harmoniously with nature.

To keep your body in good working order, it’s important to include nutrients that keep it in a state of equilibrium in your diet.

Despite the Mediterranean Diet’s popularity as a weight-loss strategy, many people don’t follow it correctly (thus, the confusion).

Many people think it is okay to eat pizza or consume spaghetti with meat sauce. If you want to follow the Mediterranean Diet, it’s important that you understand what it’s about, how it came about, and what foods are acceptable to the diet (and what foods should be consumed in moderation or eliminated).

Deciding to become healthy and lose weight is your first step toward a healthier lifestyle. However, if you’ve incorporated the Mediterranean Diet into your life, it’s imperative that you know what it comprises being successful in your weight loss/fitness venture.

The Mediterranean Diet is all about offering an array of tasty choices thanks to its alluring colors and powerful scents that fall in line with your healthy lifestyle.

Note:

While the Mediterranean Diet is known as a diet, it’s really not a diet. It doesn’t recommend reducing your calorie consumption or eliminating foods that many mainstream American diets suggest. As a result, the diet emphasizes a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle.

What Is The Mediterranean Diet Then?

• The diet is a food model that boosts the safety and quality of food and where it first originated.

• The cuisine is simple but loaded with tastes and imagination that allows anyone to take advantage of every aspect of the diet. Preservation of the customs and traditions of the Mediterranean Basin people is an ethical choice.

• Food has a profound effect on people’s health, and good nutrition is necessary to stave off various metabolic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. 

• The diet allows for the “sustainable development” of all countries that live along the Mediterranean border–from the cultural and economic effect food has on the area and its capacity to motivate the local community. 

• Ancel Keys brought the pattern to the public eye with his “Seven Countries” study, which was published in 1970.

• Studying Mediterranean people, researchers found that they have the lowest rates of coronary heart disease everywhere in the globe.

What Does The Mediterranean Diet comprise?

1. You don’t need to go on an actual diet to follow this lifestyle; rather, it’s a method of eating and exercising that incorporates Mediterranean Sea-bordering foods.
2. These countries are well-known for consuming foods like fish, fruits, beans, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, and nuts. They also don’t consume a lot of sweets, meats, and cheese. In fact, they eat more fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and monounsaturated fats. 
3. The diet is all about heart health and, because of that, 30 to 40 percent of the diet is a healthy fat. 
4. Many other diets recommend less than 30 percent for fat consumption. Many of the fats in the Mediterranean Diet are from unsaturated oils like olive oil, fish oil, seed oil, and some nut oil (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, flaxseed, soybean, and canola oil). These oils have a protective element on the heart.

What Foods Does The Diet Exclude?

Before you can know what foods you can have in the diet, it’s important you first understand the foods that you shouldn’t have on the diet. These foods include: 

• Added Sugars: This means no ice cream, candy, table sugar, soda, etc. 

• Trans Fats: This is a fat found in margarine and many processed foods 

• Processed Meat: No hot dogs, sausage, etc. 

• Refined Grains: refined wheat pasta, white bread, etc. 

• Refined Oils: No cottonseed oil, soybean oil, vegetable oil, etc. 

• Highly Processed Foods: consume nothing that’s labeled diet or low-fat (these foods are made in factories)

What Foods Should You Add To Your Diet?

Greek Yogurt

• This food is great to reduce your hunger pangs and make you feel full. It can also stabilize your blood sugar levels and decrease your cravings.

• The extra protein in Greek yogurt helps to keep you from overeating. The more calories you burn, the better your body can absorb protein. Yogurt is also great because it has probiotics (good bacteria) that make it easier for you to lose weight.

Beans

• Beans contain both insoluble and soluble fiber, and there’s no other food that can say that.

• Soluble fiber will dissolve along with the liquid in the stomach to create a viscous gel. This expands so that you feel fuller and hold on to food for a longer period.

• With the insoluble fiber, the liquid is absorbed and gives your digestive system bulk. The soluble fiber helps you feel fuller for longer.

Vegetables

• In order to keep your body active and healthy, you must consume a sufficient amount of micronutrients. According to research, a body that feels tired is likely to eat more junk food.

• Vegetables are necessary to rev up the metabolism and give the body fuel to function. Since vegetables have 90 percent water, it helps stave off dehydration. The body’s metabolism can slow down if it becomes dehydrated.

Seafood

• 99% of Americans don’t consume enough omega-3 fatty acids, which is extremely important since it can affect how the body burns fat. The kinds of foods that have omega-3 fatty acids in them include tuna and shellfish.

• You may increase your calorie burn by roughly 400 per day by eating these foods twice a week. As a result, it will help restrict fat cells from expanding, particularly in the stomach region.

Whole Grains

• Your weight loss efforts will benefit from incorporating whole grains. They’re high in fiber and take longer to eat because of that. They stimulate saliva production and cause the stomach to swell, making it easier to swallow.

• As they digest and absorb slowly, whole grains keep you fuller for longer, helping to stabilize your blood sugar levels. Oatmeal is an example of food that should be consumed.

Herbs & Spices

• If you want to speed up your metabolism and lose weight a little faster, add some spice and herbs to your foods. For instance, you can add chili pepper seasoning, hot peppers, nutmeg, or cinnamon.

• These foods will speed up your metabolism and keep you feeling filled for longer, making you less likely to overeat. They ensure you don’t eat as much at mealtimes.

Olive Oil

• It contains more monounsaturated fats than any other oil or food. Olive oil has been shown to boost the amount of energy the body spends while at rest, according to several studies.

• This implies that even if you’re just lying in bed or sitting at a desk, your body is still burning calories. A German study noted that the olive oil scent helped people to feel fuller and eat less money.

• People who took part in the study ate the yogurt that had an olive oil scent extract didn’t eat as much and had stable blood sugar levels.

What Are The Benefits Behind The Mediterranean Diet?

Remember, the Mediterranean Diet is loaded with grains, vegetables, fruits, beans, and peas. The diet comprises very little meat, and most of the fat results from eating nuts or using olive oil. 

There have been many studies looking at the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet, and those studies found it decreased the risk of much obesity-related diseases.

What are some benefits that are associated with the Mediterranean Diet?

Reduced Consumption Of Sugar and Processed Foods:

• The Mediterranean Diet is all about natural or as near natural to natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, peas, beans, olive oil, and minute amounts of animal products. It’s not like the American diet, which is loaded with GMOs and artificial ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, flavor enhancers, and preservatives. 

• People who follow the Mediterranean Diet consume more fruit and minute amounts of homemade desserts that contain natural sugars like honey. 

• Fish, like anchovies and sardines, is a major staple of this diet, along with moderate amounts of yogurt and sheep, goat, or cow cheeses. These foods are not typically seen in Western diets. 

• Does the Mediterranean Diet entail a vegetarian lifestyle? Not at all! It just means they don’t consume as much meat or food. They go with healthier, lighter foods. And all of this can lower your cholesterol levels, improve your heart health and boost your omega-3 fatty acid intake. Plus, it will help with weight loss.

• If you want to lose weight and not feel hungry to keep the weight off, the Mediterranean Diet is a sustainable method that promotes weight loss. You decrease your amount of fat intake and increase your consumption of nutrient-rich foods. 

• For this diet, how you do it is up to you. If you want to reduce your carb consumption, you can do so. If you want to consume more protein than carbs, you can do that too. 

• Your body needs healthy fatty acids, which will help you control any weight gain, make you feel full, and control your blood sugar level. You’ll also be more energetic and in a better mood.

Boost Your Heart Health

1. A traditional Mediterranean diet has a plethora of omega-3 and monounsaturated fat foods, which can reduce your chance of developing heart disease.
2. Research has shown that olive oil is loaded with alpha-linolenic acid, which can reduce the cardiac death risk by 30 percent and unexpected cardiac death by 45 percent.
3. People who consume more olive oil had a better blood pressure rate than people who consumed other kinds of oils such as sunflower, vegetable, etc.

It Can Help Prevent Cancer?

• Plant foods, vegetables and fruits are a major part of the Mediterranean diet, and these foods help to fight cancer. They provide your body with antioxidants, protect DNA from being damaged, reduce the possibility of cell mutation, reduce inflammation and slow down or prevent tumor growth.

• Olive oil is also beneficial in preventing cancer development, especially bowel and colon cancers.

• Reduce The Chance For Diabetes Development.

• Various studies show that eating a healthy diet can help with anti-inflammatory concerns, lowering the risk of chronic inflammation, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

• It can prevent diabetes by controlling the extra insulin (hormone controlling blood sugar levels and leads to weight gain). With blood sugar levels are regulated and by eating better types of carbs and proteins, your body will burn fat more effectively.

• The American Heart Association notes the Mediterranean diet is much higher in fat, but that it’s healthier fat.

• Remember, the diet is 40 percent carbohydrates, 20 to 30 percent quality proteins, and 30 to 40 percent healthy fats. Sugar is limited in the diet, with most of it coming from fruit and locally produced pastries.

Who Can Use The Mediterranean Diet?

Anybody who wants to eat healthily, feel better and lose weight can follow the Mediterranean Diet. 

It can fit into anyone’s lifestyle, including a child’s. Plus, children who have been introduced to a healthy diet and exercise are far more likely to keep up with the lifestyle when they become adults.

Conclusion

Remember that this diet is more of a lifestyle shift than a diet, so you won’t have to make any major lifestyle adjustments. 

You don’t have to count calories, which is something your body should deal with. Your body understands how many calories it requires and how it will use them.

Because body weight fluctuates, there’s no need to weigh yourself every day. You could actually gain weight or maintain it, but lose fat (thanks to strength training). 

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