Readily meals that helps your weight loss

 Losing weight can be as simple as changing your meals, incorporating healthy food choices into your diet, portion/calorie control and exercise.  Here are a few Nigerian food you can incorporate into your diet that don’t get your calories spiking:

1. Unripe Plantain: Loaded with abundant essential minerals and vitamins such as dietary fiber, iron, potassium, vitamin b-complex, magnesium, manganese, copper, niacin, riboflavin and thiamin

2. Lemon (Zap some of it in water to drink daily): Lemon is another one of the big powerful medicines that promotes health in different ways.  It too is considered a natural thinning agent. Its vitamin C content turns it into a very effective antioxidant that promotes waste elimination from the body, fights fluid retention, helps detoxify the body and contributes to a reduction in abdominal swelling. Drinking water whether hot or cold, infused with lemon helps keeps your metabolism humming. Our body metabolism reduces with age as a result of muscle loss, so we need a good body metabolism to lose weight. This has proven helpful time over time.

3. Red & Green Pepper: If you are trying to lose weight without sacrificing nutrition, red and green bell peppers can be beneficial. Each medium pepper provides 1.18 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of fiber and 5 grams of natural sugar(good sugar called fructose), with only 37 calories. Whether you have red bell peppers in a breakfast egg sauce, on a salad at lunch or with other sautéed vegetables at dinner, they can contribute flavor to a variety of foods without adding an abundance of calories, fat or cholesterol.

4. Water Melon (Juicy!)  Fruits and vegetables should make up a significant proportion of your low-calorie diet because they have lots of nutrients and few calories per serving, and they can be quite satisfying. Two cups of cubed watermelon have 80 calories but no fat. Choosing watermelon over junk food can save you a lot of calories. For example, a serving of 10 to 15 barbecue-flavor potato chips, which equals 1 ounce, has 138 calories and 9 grams of fat; a 12-ounce can of soda has 160 calories; and a small, 3-inch round, glazed doughnut has 130 calories. You can quench your thirst and satisfy a sweet tooth with watermelon, all the while saving calories.

5. Ginger: Not only does ginger improve digestive functions but it also has a “thermogenic” effect that helps activate the metabolism, making it a potent fat and calorie-burner.

6. Beans: Beans are packed with beneficial nutrients, including protein and fiber -which is an amazing  punch for weight loss. Simply eating more fiber -- 30 grams per day -- helps with weight loss, even if you aren't sticking to a strict diet

7. Soy Beans: Protein is a filling nutrient that can help delay the onset of hunger after you eat a meal or snack. Soybeans are naturally high in quality protein. A half-cup of green soybeans provides 17 grams of protein, which is 34 percent of the daily value.

8. Grapes: Dark purple grapes contain a powerful antioxidant known as resveratrol in their skin, research also suggests that consuming more of the antioxidant might help with obesity.

9. Nuts: (Cashew, Peanuts & Walnuts ) all contains Omega 3 healthy fat, research shows that eating nuts regularly was associated with little or no weight gain and a lower body-mass index.

10. Mushrooms : Mushrooms are one of the lowest-calorie natural foods available, and they have fantastic nutritional benefits. For those reasons, they work very well within a balanced diet for  weight loss.

11. Sea foods (e.g. Sardine, Crabs, Cray fish, Crustaceans) Protein helps increase satiety, so including more high-protein, low-calorie foods in your diet may help with weight loss. Omega-3 fats also play a role.

12. Olive Oil: Olive oil, particularly extra-virgin olive oil, is full of vitamin E and antioxidants. These help fight the free radicals in your bloodstream that may be the cause of some of the effects of aging as well as certain cancers. Extreme quick weight loss is possible, but that doesn’t mean you should down a cup full of olive oil just to lose pounds, that could have laxative effect which could lead to diarrhea and make you dehydrated, but rather when cooking always make olive oil your preferred choice.

13. Onion & Garlic: Research shows that they can prevent weight gain and even cause weight loss.

14. Wheat & Oat based food (Wheat bread, Wheat meals, Quaker Oats): Eating whole-grain foods like those made from whole wheat and oats offers numerous health benefits. These foods have an array of important vitamins and minerals, and their rich fiber content can decrease cholesterol and contribute to healthier blood sugar levels.

15. Bananas : Whether a food is good for weight loss depends on the calories its contains, bananas have a bad reputation of being a diet wrecking fruit, but how can that be when they contain fiber and resistant starch which support weight loss. They’re also a nutritious, low-energy-density food, which is good for dropping pounds.

16. Brown or Basmati  Rice (healthier than your usual long grain white rice): Rice  is a staple grain in half the worlds population. Back in the day, when trying to lose weight we usually just avoid rice completely, but thank goodness for brown and basmati rice, we can have this grain meal and not have so much to worry about, Compared to regular long-grain rice, basmati/brown  rice is lower in calories, fat, carbs, and high in fiber and you know what that means.

18. Egg (plus the yolk.): Incorporating eggs into a balanced diet may help you better manage your weight. “Protein from foods like eggs helps keep us feeling full and satisfied throughout the day, It also plays an important role in maintaining lean muscle mass during weight loss, and muscle tissue increases your metabolism.” One large egg contains about 70 calories and six grams of protein, making it a relatively low-calorie protein source. This is important because weight loss requires consuming fewer calories than you burn through activity.

19.  Avocados (Popularly called Pear in Nigeria) : If you have followed me up, you would notice that I have put up two post about this magic food already, eating avocado is like eating fat to burn fat, for a long time we thought avocado was good for nothing fat, but a reevaluation of  that research has shown that they raise HDL (good) cholesterol just as much, if not more, protecting the body from unhealthy cholesterol levels and heart disease avocados are infused with nutrients that could help maintain a  healthy weight maintenance.

There is no vain in pampering yourself to a good balanced meal, protect your home(body), make wise and healthy food choices and watch your body, health and even skin transform... XoXo