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Shedding a few pounds after Christmas
Dieting after Christmas
The Christmas holidays are over, everything is back to
its normal routine, but hang on a second! My trousers don’t fit me anymore!
Even though it happens every year, we usually welcome the
few more pounds of weight we gained from the Christmas holidays’ meals as a
shocking surprise.
Well, yes, the stereotype is true, Italians spend usually
their winter holidays eating all the time! A lunch can literary last 5 hours or
easily slide into dinner without ever leaving the chair you were sitting on. Of
course many other things have happened in the meanwhile, for example board
games, cards, family arguments and lovely chats might have been the reasons of
this reluctance to leave the table.
The one million dollar question is now, “ Is it possible
to lose weight eating Italian food, the accused architect of your holiday
fat?”.
Apart from jokes,
it is obviously possible, being the Mediterranean diet one of the healthiest
and with the lowest calories supply on the planet.
Italian diets have a good balance of quantity and quality
of food. If you want to lose weight following a diet plan that includes Italian
food recipes, a good option could be to opt for a low-calorie versions of your
traditional favourites or just reduce the quantity of food you are going to
ingest.
Everybody knows that healthy eating is the real key to an
effective, safe and long lasting weight loss. Moreover the only way to lose
weight and keep it off is changing the way you eat, learning balanced nutrition
and portion control and keep on doing this every day, not just for a limited
period of time.
Many nutritionists advise to focus on what to eat (more
whole grains, more fruits, more vegetables and legumes, a lot of fish, olive
oil) rather than on what not to eat (less red meats and less dairy). Apparently
a positive approach makes it easier to stick to a healthier diet. Basically,
eating should never become a punishment! You must enjoy what you eat and no
foods are off limits. The important thing is to learn balanced nutrition and
get used to make it a daily routine.
Anyway there is some basic information about nutrition
which could be useful to know, for example the distinction between saturated
and unsaturated fats.
There is no clear distinction between “good fats” and
“bad fats”: they’re all part of the body’s biochemical balance, ideally equally
divided into saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. But saturated
fats tend to cause heightened blood cholesterol levels, while polyunsaturated
fats promote the elimination of cholesterol molecules, reducing the quantity
that circulates in the blood. In general, but with some exceptions, animal
origin foods (meat, milk, dairy, etc.) have a larger makeup of saturated fat
acids, while foods of vegetable origin contain mainly unsaturated fat acids.
Another age-old
question is, “Are sweets friends or enemies?”.
Some sweets such as traditional Italian baked specialties
are prepared with high quality ingredients, therefore providing carbohydrates,
good quantities of protein and well-balanced fats. These sweets can be
integrated into a well balanced diet especially in the morning or as a snack
during the day. What we should avoid, however, is to eat sweets, fatty foods,
candy, gum, chocolate, or chips frequently throughout the day. To eat less of everything and enjoy your
favourite food seems to be the best way to keep your healthy weight.
Giulia Lombardo
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Posts: 1
Reply #1 on : Sun January 15, 2012, 19:43:56