Accelerate Your Weight Loss – Here’s How To Do It The Right Way.
Eating your veggies isn’t just Mom’s advice from way back when. It’s a cornerstone of our Integrative Nutrition Program - and for two main reasons.
First, there’s the nutritional considerations. Vegetables have micro-nutrients, vitamins and minerals that have anti-cancer, cardiovascular and blood sugar stabling benefits. Second, vegetables are low in calorie density and high in fiber, which can help with weight-loss. When our clients eat more vegetables, their weight loss accelerates.
To incorporate as many veggies as possible throughout your day, a strategy that we recommend at the Center and encourage people to take home is the concept of ‘front loading.’ The idea is to eat a first course that’s entirely vegetable. This could be a salad, it could be gazpacho or another vegetable-based soup, it could be a roasted veggie mix, it could be zucchini noodles and tomato sauce. You can get creative. The reason it’s so powerful is that we tend to start our meal hungrier and eat the first part of our meal faster. But when we’re eating vegetables, we have to slow down our eating - because vegetables require chewing. This is a way to give you something that will help make you feel full with the lowest caloric value and the highest nutritional hit. Also, when you’re the hungriest - that’s when the food will taste the best.
Another reason to get creative in the kitchen? Eating a rainbow of vegetables offers varied health benefits, naturally. For example, the cruciferous family, which includes cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower (among others – see a list here), is known for its cancer-fighting benefits. But if all you eat is cauliflower, you’re not getting other powerful phytonutrients, like antioxidants from onions or beta-carotene from carrots. Eating more color gives you diversity in nutrients. It is also especially important to eat dark, leafy greens, such as in a salad, because they also offer high anti-inflammatory benefits.
So, how many vegetables should I be eating? If your weight is stable and you are looking for nutritional health, go for four to five servings - one serving is equal to 2 cups salad greens, ½ cup vegetables cooked, raw, or juiced. For weight loss, we increase that number depending on the person’s appetite. Keep in mind that if you’re new to high-veggie eating, make sure to slowly increase the quantity of vegetables so the fiber doesn’t upset your stomach or cause gas or bloating.
To help you eat more quantity and variety of vegetables, here are a few delicious dishes to try from our recipes.
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(348 Cal) In this recipe the mushrooms are thick cut to remain meaty and the spice mixture is decidedly Middle Eastern. The Tzatziki sauce is Greek but mixes well with the spices making a great meatless lunch that is tasty and satisfying.