Are There Really Healthy Foods to Lose Weight?
People are always looking for healthy foods to lose weight.
Well by definition being healthy certainly has a relationship to body weight and body fat. If someone claimed to be healthy you would expect them to be at an ideal body weight with a reasonable level of body fat. So a healthy food certainly shouldn’t make us gain weight but are there really healthy foods to lose weight?
Paleo - A great way to eat healthy and lose weight
The short answer is Yes, there are healthy foods to lose weight. And I am not talking about some special foods that speed up our metabolism or secretly burn fat. But what I am talking about is manipulating our diet and therefore our hormones so the body does not store fat. To understand a little bit more there are two things we need to cover. Firstly what constitutes a healthy food and secondly why or how can it help us to lose weight.
If it has a used by date on it longer than 7 days, do not eat it.
I feel that healthy eating is very simple. Your goal is to eat as much natural food as possible. If it is processed, in a bag, jar, bottle, can, package, carton then do not eat it. If it has a used by date on it longer than 7 days, do not eat it. So what does this leave us with? Meat, fish, fowl, nuts, seeds, and colorful natural carbohydrates, such as vegetables and fruits. When you eliminate processed and packaged foods from your diet you will find that a majority of these foods are based on wheat, rice, flour and corn. Things like breads, biscuits, cereals and pastas. Many of these products are staples of our average diet and many people believe responsible for rising diabetes, obesity rates and heart disease the world over.
Healthy Foods to Lose Weight Do Not Come in a Package, Box or Carton
Many of the packaged and processed goods previously mentioned are foods also high in carbohydrates. So I guess you could say this approach is a low carbohydrate approach, it is also being called a paleo diet which refers to how we ate before the agricultural revolution. Now the scientific literature is mounting to support this type of diet approach as an effective weight loss strategy. Why can minimizing carbohydrates be an effective weight loss approach? Not because of reducing calories or less water retention as skeptics tout, but because of the reducing the effects of insulin.
Insulin also plays a large role in fat storage.
A little bit of scientific explanation is needed. Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas to help regulate blood sugar. When there is too much sugar in the blood insulin helps convert it to fuel. Insulin also plays a large role in fat storage. So with too many carbohydrates, the body releases insulin and we can promote fat storage. But wait it gets worse. What can happen due our excessive intake of carbohydrates, is that overtime, the cells of the body become less sensitive to insulin. Therefore the body often has to release more insulin which can trigger more fat storage. It’s a vicious cycle.
An entertaining and informative video on how insulin can make you fat!
Healthy foods to lose weight limit insulin release
So there are healthy foods to lose weight and it has to do with regulating carbohydrate intake and therefore insulin. This results in regulating the body’s fat storage mechanisms. Forget counting calories, eating tasteless low fat food and the next fad diet. Eat more healthy foods and less processed foods, like we were designed to eat and restore your body to the lean (non-fat storing) machine that it is suppose to be. So I guess there are healthy foods to lose weight.
