Why eat enough nutrition to lose weight successfully?

Do you have this feeling: dieting and weight loss are very effective, but once you let go of eating, you will rebound quickly. Why is this? Today we are going to talk about the importance of adequate nutrition for weight loss.

Simple calculation of dietary calories

It's hard to lose weight

In the process of losing weight, most people will focus on controlling calories, often ignoring the intake of the most important nutrients.

In the initial stage of weight loss, you will indeed start with reducing calories. Simply counting calories will indeed have the effect of reducing fat in the short term, but healthy and effective fat loss pays more attention to the long-term effect. Simple calorie control is difficult to really lose weight, and it is easy to rebound.

Because you may lose protein and muscle, but what you really need to lose is fat, so although you have lost weight, you have not actually lost weight at all. So even if you count your calories accurately, it doesn't mean you will be able to lose weight.

If you eat a balanced diet and allow your body to take in enough nutrients, your body will become more energetic, less prone to fatigue, and consume more energy. Through this virtuous cycle, the body will naturally lose weight gradually, and become healthier and healthier, and it is not easy to rebound.

What is a high nutrient density diet?

When it comes to taking in enough nutrients, we have to mention a high-nutrient-density diet. Nutrient density (ND) refers to the concentration of important nutrients (vitamins, minerals and proteins) contained in food based on unit calories, and is generally used to evaluate a certain nutrient in food alone. The ND of a nutrient is the ratio of the ratio of the nutrient to the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) and the ratio of the energy of the food to the energy RDA. It can be expressed by the formula: ND = % of a food that satisfies the RDA of a certain nutrient/from the food % of energy RDA met. For example: with the same 100 kcal of calories, the weight of fruit is relatively large, and it also contains a lot of water, vitamins and some dietary fiber; while chocolate contains a lot of sugar and trans fat, so the nutritional density of fruit is higher.

There is a pair of twin brothers who have the same height, weight, basal metabolism, and exercise expenditure. They use 1400 kcal to lose weight. One month later, the elder brother lost 6 catties, and the younger brother only lost 2 catties. Obviously the calories in the recipes are the same, why is there such a big difference in the weight loss effect?

The food arrangement of the twin brothers during their weight loss this month, we can see that the elder brother who lost 6 pounds eats whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and lean meat and eggs, which are protein sources needed by muscle tissue. kind. Under the same calorie situation, the younger brother chose noodles, cakes, white rice, ham, and biscuits. Therefore, the weight loss effect will have such a big difference.

High-quality low-carbohydrate, low-fat diet

can reduce the risk of death

In a paper on the correlation study of "low-fat meals and low-carbohydrate meals on American mortality", it was concluded that low-carbohydrate and low-fat meals have nothing to do with the risk of death if you simply look at the ratio of carbohydrates, fat, and protein . If the quality of the food source (nutrient density) is considered, both low-carb and low-fat meals are associated with mortality risk, and high-quality diets of both diets can reduce the risk of death.

Therefore, the final conclusion is very clear: only the quality of the diet is related to the risk of death, and it is meaningless to talk about "low carbohydrate" or "low fat" regardless of food nutrient density. So to improve the quality of diet is the key!

List different foods for everyone——

High-quality carbohydrates: non-starchy vegetables (beans, carrots, lotus root, etc.), whole grains (whole wheat, oats, quinoa, brown rice), fruits.

Low-quality carbohydrates: refined grains (bread, white rice, steamed buns), free sugars (including fruit juice, honey, various natural syrups), potatoes, pure starch, processed vermicelli (vermicelli, rice noodles, sweet potato flour, etc.).

High-quality fats: vegetable fats and unsaturated fats.

Low-quality fats: saturated fat, trans fat.