A well-balanced diet in weight loss

Weight loss is a trend that just wont go away – everyone is always looking for the easiest, quickest and most effective way to lose weight. The list of fad diets is absolutely endless and more often than not amidst the weight loss whirlwind we lose sight of the fundamentals of nutrition. We forget about the role of food in our body aside from fat gains or losses.. We forget that we literally can not function without certain nutrients.

I absolutely believe we do not need all these fad diets to lose weight, all we need is a well-balanced diet which provides a caloric deficit and we need movement.

So often we see diets out there which provide us with, lets say, 1300 calories made up of extremely low energy dense foods, sometimes with little nutritional value. Additionally to this, on some diets we may be asked to eat the same foods, day in and day out without a spare thought to what this might be doing to our nutrient intake over time..

Nutrients may not seem very cool or exciting, but they are actually crucial to our health, and our health is crucial to weight loss.

If we are depriving ourselves of certain nutrients, and I’m talking like vitamins and minerals, then we are depriving the processes within our body which quite literally need these vitamins and minerals to function. Our detoxification systems, metabolism, hormone production and gut health are all examples of processes which can be harmed and slowed due to certain nutrient deficiencies.

A good example is zinc. Zinc plays a role in regulating our thyroid gland – a little gland which sits in our throat and makes up part of our endocrine system which is responsible for releasing thyroid hormones into the blood stream. A huge role of the thyroid is to regulate metabolism – which I’m sure you’ve all heard about.

Our metabolism is a whollleee string of biochemical reactions which maintain the living state of our cells and well.. us. But I’m sure you may of heard of it as something that burns calories – which, in layman’s terms, it does!

If our thyroid hormone, however, isn’t getting enough zinc, then it slows down production of thyroid hormones and as a result our metabolism slows down, which directly affects the speed at which we will lose weight. Weight loss diets, can be curated to provide all the necessary nutrients, however, which is why its important to obtain a nutrition plan from someone who you know is qualified! The ministry of health provides guidelines for diets for the different life stages – which gives you set numbers of how many whole grains, how many dairy products, how many fruit and veg you must have per day to achieve the nutrients required for your body to function like a well-oiled machine! A good nutritionist will be able to provide you a weight loss plan which combines all the required foods and nutrients while still putting you into a calorie deficit needed for weight loss. Another bonus is you will still be feeling you best! Weight loss doesn’t have to come with side effects like fatigue, weakness or skin issues.

Another note is that if you are currently trying to lose weight and you are finding you’ve hit a plateau or things have slowed down substantially, perhaps your nutrient intake is something to look into!

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