Carrots are a great addition to any diet since they are high in vitamins and minerals, but most importantly they are low in calories. This is because they have a high water content, and they are also high in fiber. Adding all of this together makes carrots a filling and nutritious snack.
Raw carrots are great to eat with your favorite high-protein dip, such as hummus, and they are easy to sneak into meals like in pasta sauce or in a homemade chicken tikka masala. Add them alongside meals too for a little crunch!
We specified air-popped popcorn because the popcorn that you get from the movies or out of the microwave traditionally are coated in heavy, unhealthy oils and butter that add a lot of unnecessary fat. Popcorn is high in fiber since it is a whole grain, but it can too easily be high in calories when made with oil and butter.
Air-popped popcorn is super easy to make in an air popcorn maker. To make it, all you have to do is add the kernels into the machine, turn it on, and wait for the kernels to start popping! Add salt to finish it off, or get creative with different seasoning blends that add a lot of flavor for not a lot of calories!
This one might seem obvious, but salad greens are very good for weight loss. And don’t worry, we’re not trying to get you to eat a boring iceberg salad with shaved carrots and oil and vinegar dressing. Barely anyone actually likes that kind of salad.
Instead, search online for some yummy salad inspirations. Find a recipe that has some good fats like avocado or some kind of seeds or nuts, plenty of veggies and fruits that you like, maybe even some good cheese, and a healthy dressing that you can make at home with good ingredients like extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Salads don’t have to be boring to be healthy!
Now, it’s common for people to not like asparagus, and we can agree with you on that, but for those of you who do enjoy asparagus, it can be a great vegetable to add into your diet to aid in weight loss. Asparagus has a high water, fiber, and nutrient content, making it low-calorie but nutrient-rich.
Don’t settle for only boiling it and serving it with salt and pepper, though. Spray it with extra virgin olive oil (instead of pouring it which uses more oil), and sprinkle on a good amount of seasonings like salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, herbs, and maybe even some lemon zest. Seasonings and cooking it in a way you enjoy are key to not getting bored when cooking to lose weight!
Extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil, and safflower oil are considered “good fats” because they contain a high amount of monounsaturated fat when compared to the “bad” saturated fat. Monounsaturated fat is better for your body than saturated fat, although both are necessary in a healthy diet.
The trick is to have a balanced ratio between the two. The typical American diet is too high in saturated fat, and that level needs to be lowered and then combined with more monounsaturated fat. It can still be bad for your cholesterol levels to consume too much monounsaturated fat, but by lowering the amount of saturated fat you consume and replacing that amount with monounsaturated fat like these healthy oils, your body will thank you.
Green beans are another great addition to your diet to help with weight loss. Just like the other vegetables on this list, they are high in water, fiber, and nutrients, but very low in calories. They pair well alongside many meals and are easy to make too.
Like with asparagus, be sure to add plenty of seasonings to make them really taste good. Don’t eat them in the casserole form, though, because all of the extra calories from the cheese and other products you put in the casserole will definitely not help with your weight loss goals, although it is great to have every once in a while like holidays or other special occasions.
Is there any surprise here? Broccoli is amazing for weight loss, and there are many different ways to eat it too. Eating raw broccoli with hummus or in a salad is great, but there are also many different ways to cook it that don’t involve steaming!
Steaming is good because it doesn’t use oil, but it also doesn’t taste as good, and you need to enjoy your food to have sustainable weight loss. Instead of steaming, just use a small amount of oil and roast your broccoli in the oven or sear it in a pan. Make sure it has browned a little on the edges and season it well with herbs or low calorie sauces. Also don’t add cheese; seasonings will do a much better job of making it enjoyable for fewer calories!
Another classic to any weight loss diet is white meat poultry. This includes chicken breast, turkey breast, or any meat from a bird that is white when cooked, which is usually the breast meat. Thigh meat is usually darker and contains more fat.
This is a good addition because white meat is full of protein, but low in fat, allowing you to better manage your macronutrient ratios (protein, carbohydrates, and fat). Protein also helps keep you fuller longer, so a healthy serving of chicken salad made with avocados instead of mayonnaise and your favorite veggie add-ins served on a lettuce wrap makes a great, filling, low-calorie lunch!
Zucchini is another great addition to your veggie load. It is super versatile and has a very mild flavor so it can be added to almost anything without you knowing it’s even there. It has a high water and fiber content, and also doesn’t have that many calories.
Not only are they great for roasting, you can also add them to any sauce, grate them to make them into breads and pancakes, and throw them into a smoothie for more nutrients and fiber. You won’t even know it’s there!
Worried that your sweet tooth will get you down and hurt your weight loss results? Turn instead to fresh fruit! Or frozen fruit. Or cooked fruit. Just make sure that there is not any sugar or extra stuff added. Fresh fruit is better than dried fruit because by having more volume because of its water content, it helps you to eat less than you would with dried or freeze dried fruit that are easy to overeat.
Add fruit alongside your breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Eat an apple with Greek yogurt and peanut butter for a snack. Make a smoothie. Make your own sugar free jam by cooking down some strawberries with a little water to add to your whole wheat toast or your PB&J. Fruit is a great way to train your sweet tooth to go away without completely depriving it.
A good swap you can make to help with weight loss is to make sure all of your grains (or at least 80% of your grains) are whole grains. You can look for this on the packaging of your favorite grainy goods like pasta, breads, and crackers. Remember to also look at the ingredients list of packaged items you are buying to make sure that you can understand what is in the food you are buying. If an ingredient looks like something you would see in chemistry class, Google its name and see if it is something that you are okay with being in your food.
Whole grains are grains in their entirety, meaning it is still nearly completely in-tact and doesn’t have the outer layer stripped away. A good example is brown rice vs. white rice. Brown rice is the whole kernel of rice, which is why it is brown. White rice is just the inside “meaty” part of the rice without the outer kernel. The outer layer of these grains adds more fiber and nutrients to the meal helping to keep you fuller longer.
Legumes are essentially any type of bean or pea that you can think of. Black beans, pinto beans, lentils, chickpeas, and so many more are categorized as legumes. Even peanuts are considered legumes! Legumes are good to add into your weight loss diet because they are high in protein and fiber but low in calories.
If you are vegan or vegetarian, it is very important that you get a variety of legumes in your diet to make up for the protein you are not getting from meat. The great thing about them is that they are so easy to add to any meal to bulk it up to make it last longer and get you fuller faster with fewer calories.
Fish is another great source of protein and heart healthy omega 3s. Omega 3s are the “good” fat that we need more of in our American diets, but that doesn’t mean we should add more fat into our diets. It just means we should lower the amount of the “bad” omega 6s we get a lot of in the typical American diet and include more omega 3s.
Salmon is a great fish to add into your normal dinner rotation. Wild caught fish of any variety are notably the healthier version of the fish since they were not raised in overcrowded farms with only a little space to move around, and wild caught fish get to eat what they want instead of whatever they are fed by farmers. Farmed fish also have a higher mercury content because of being in such crowded waters.
Did you know that eggs are a superfood? While they may have gotten some flack over the years for being high in cholesterol or whatever else they have to say badly about eggs, they can’t deny the high nutritional value or filling power of eggs.
While egg yolks are considered “unhealthy” by some because of the high fat content, they are also one of nature’s multivitamins because of the high concentration of essential nutrients. Pasture raised eggs are the best to get since the hens have plenty of space to eat whatever they want, and the proof is in the color of the yolk! If the yolks of the eggs you buy are yellow and not a rich orange color, chances are it came from a malnourished chicken.
Nuts and seeds are another essential when it comes to a sustainable weight loss diet. Almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, and sunflower seeds are just some of the amazing and nutritious nuts and seeds you can add to your diet to keep you fuller longer on good fats and fiber!
While nuts are easy to break down through chewing, seeds can be tricky since they are quite a bit smaller. This means it is harder for your body to break down their tough outer shell. Not even your stomach acids can get through that tough layer!. So in order to avoid the seeds just slipping on by without getting broken down and your body absorbing their great nutrients, grind your seeds before adding them into your meals!
