If you want to lose weight fast and keep your body slim and healthy, it is the simple things that you need to do well. This list includes incorporating more vegetables in your diet. Most people have heard this so often beginning from their childhood, that they simply do not pay attention to this wonderful piece of advice. However, if you just focus your attention in this direction for a minute, you will find out that eating a variety of vegetables is a very essential ingredient of any weight loss plan.
How Vegetables Help You Lose Weight
Essentially, almost all vegetables are high in fiber and low in calories. Combine this with their excellent nutritive value and health benefits, and you have an unbeatable combo for a weight loss diet. It is not complicated to understand how it all works. All the fiber in the vegetables makes the digestive system work that much harder to break down the food, and this means that the body burns more calories during digestion than it would to process a burger and fries.
Besides, while your body is burning more calories to digest a vegetable-intensive meal, you also ensured that you put in less-calories during the meal itself. Vegetables have less-calories, per gram of weight, than most other foods. However, a good serving of vegetables will still leave you feeling full because of the fiber content and the actual weight of the food. So, you will not end up overeating in the next couple of hours or during your next meal. In other words, a vegetable intensive diet helps you control your overall calorie intake, and also leaves you feeling healthy and energetic. Put all these pieces together, and you have nothing less than a weight loss miracle.
The Two Kinds
There are essentially two kinds of vegetables - starchy and non-starchy. The non-starchy ones are the ones you should be eating more, because they are low in sugar. The starchy ones are just the opposite. Except for potatoes, corn, peas, squash, plantains and yams, all the other major vegetables are non-starchy.
Recommended Portions
The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) recommends that a healthy adult should eat 3 or more cups of vegetables a day, out of which only about half a cup should be starchy vegetables.
Free Foods
Some vegetables are so low in calories that they are known as 'free foods'. These include carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, radishes, cucumbers, fresh green beans, cabbages, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and celery.
Nutrient-Rich
Apart from their weight loss benefits, vegetables are also very rich in nutrients, including vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. Ideally, one should have a variety of vegetables than just sticking to one or two, because the health advantages are distributed over the different colour groups of vegetables. For maximum health benefits, the vegetables are best eaten raw, baked or steamed. If they are boiled and the stalk is thrown away, the majority of the nutrients go with the stalk.
If you have decided to eat more vegetables to lose weight fast, but find that you are having to force yourself, try to change your strategy. Instead of putting vegetables on the side or munching a raw salad, try to incorporate more vegetables into your main dish itself, whether it is a lasagna, a casserole, an omelet or a soup. Apart from all the health benefits, this will almost always improve the taste of your food!
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