Key Points at a Glance
- Lose weight while continuing to eat normally? Unfortunately, that's not possible in reality.
- If you want to lose weight, you have to be willing to make small sacrifices.
- The challenge is to maintain a diet that prevents nutritional deficiencies despite these sacrifices.
- In this guide, we'll share tips on which foods can actually help you lose weight while also providing important nutrients.
But before we turn our attention to the foods that really help with weight loss, we need to keep in mind that losing weight is virtually impossible without exercise. This is because only exercise increases the body’s basal metabolic rate, and only through physical activity are enough calories burned for weight loss to actually work. Proper nutrition is merely an additional component of weight loss.
You Can't Lose Weight Without Water
However, it makes perfect sense to focus on a combination of exercise and proper nutrition. And proper nutrition starts with water—not fruit juices, and certainly not soft drinks, which contain processed sugar. Water can make your body feel full, which is why you should start drinking water first thing in the morning.
Whether you choose to drink tap water, sparkling water, or tea is entirely up to you. Especially in the morning, however, a hot beverage with a little flavor is more pleasant than sparkling water, for example. It’s important, though, that you don’t sweeten your tea—neither with sugar nor with honey. By the way, unsweetened coffee isn’t off-limits either, as long as you limit yourself to a maximum of four cups a day.
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruit is not, in and of itself, a cure-all when it comes to losing weight. That’s because many types are high in fructose, which in turn provides your body with a lot of calories. So you should eat fruits that have a relatively low fructose content. In addition to grapefruit and oranges, these include apples, pears, and watermelon.
Vegetables are easier—they contain virtually no fructose of their own. However, they should be unprocessed and, if possible, fresh. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are relatively high in calories, so you should be sure to eat only small amounts of them. Vegetables such as spinach, Swiss chard, kale, and broccoli—as well as asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and carrots—are low in calories but rich in important nutrients, such as vitamins and iron.
Nuts, grains, legumes, and seeds
Don’t nuts contain fat—and therefore a lot of calories? That’s true, and yet—when eaten in moderation—they can help with weight loss. They provide nutrients, fatty acids, fiber, and protein, and promote heart health. In any case, you should eat nuts in their natural, unprocessed form. And instead of grains, it’s recommended to eat so-called pseudo-grains. These include buckwheat, amaranth, and quinoa. They help you feel full and contain additional nutrients, carbohydrates, fiber, and protein—but no gluten.
Whether lentils, peas, or beans: legumes are very helpful for weight loss. They also contain valuable nutrients—but because of their relatively high calorie content, they shouldn’t be eaten in excessive amounts. As for seeds, however, there are hardly any restrictions. Whether sesame seeds, flaxseeds, hemp seeds, or chia seeds, they are filling, rich in nutrients, and provide the body with fiber and protein.
