There are a few key things to look out for when deciding upon whether a recipe is healthy. Firstly take a look at the calorie content and avoid anything high in calories, such as a creamy based pasta dish. Secondly take note of the fat content in the recipe and avoid anything high in saturated fat – remember there are different types of fat and fat is an essential part to your diet. Finally take note of your portion size, many recipes give you the quantities for say 4 people but the nutritional information might be for just 1 serving.
Also think about how you’re cooking your recipe a healthy recipe should be baked, grilled or eaten raw. Avoid frying or roasting food as this just adds additional fat and calories.
When preparing your healthy balanced recipe make sure you include plenty of whole fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables and avoid adding pure fat, sugar and processed foods.
When you start dieting it is really important that you are aware everything you’re eating and drinking. Diet food doesn’t need to be boring but it does need to be low in calories, saturated fat and relatively low in carbohydrates. Any diet recipe that is high in carbs and you subsequently fail to burn them off through exercise will simply be stored as fat and obviously won’t help your weight loss. So a good diet food recipe should be portion controlled – so don’t pile your plate sky high! It should be high in fibre and protein and low in saturated fat, low in refined carbohydrates and should not contain excess calories. Also when making up a diet recipe avoid frying and try to eat, where possible, food in its raw state.
Some of the best diet recipes have come from simply experimenting in the kitchen. Take a selection of healthy foods you know you enjoy and try creating your own recipes. If you take a recipe from a book or find one online, there are sure to be ingredients you don’t particularly like in the dish, so rather than substituting everything on the menu try making your own healthy recipe.
If you’re really stuck for a weight loss or healthy recipe, try this one. Take a selection of vegetables such as – an onion, broccoli, red and green pepper, courgettes and chick peas (also add some garlic). Chop them up and add to a pan which you’ve heated up already and coated with a few squirts of 1 calorie cooking spray. Once the vegetables have softened add a tin of chopped tomatoes and season to taste – add salt pepper and maybe some chilli (which is great for speeding up your metabolism and can help with weight loss) and allow it to simmer. After 10-15 mins add a small amount of water and pour cous cous over the top, cover the pan and leave for 5 minutes of so. When you return you’ll have a pan filled with delicious, tasty and of course healthy cous cous. Serve your cous cous with a big salad and if you’ve cooked too much don’t feel you have to eat it! Remember portion control is essential to weight loss. Instead box it up and have it for lunch or dinner tomorrow.
Here is a brief list of foods you’d might like to consider eating when you are on a diet to lose weight:
Fruit – Such as blueberries, apples, pears and strawberries and avoid eating too many bananas and watermelon as both are high in sugar.
Vegetable – Root vegetable such as potatoes aren’t really the type of vegetable you want to be filling up on as they are high in carbohydrate and remember unused carbs simply get stored as fat. Instead aim to eat plenty of healthy green leafed vegetables.
Seed and Nuts – These are a great natural source of good fats which can help improve the condition of your hair, nails and skin. Try to avoid high fat nuts and use seeds to put over salads and eat with soups.
You should avoid eating refined carbohydrates such as white bread, white pasta and rice and replace them with complex carbs sure as wholegrain brown bread, brown rice and whole wheat pasta.
There are tonnes of healthy recipes out there for you to choose from and if you can’t find one you like try making your own healthy, weight loss recipe. Alternatively you can take a look at the Love Life Hate Diets Recipe collection which we are always adding to.
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