Mediterranean Diet- Healthy Way To Lose Weight

Today everyone is conscious about their healthy lifestyle. Everyone wants to look great and wants to lead a flawless healthy life. There are many ways through which people are maintaining themselves, out of which Mediterranean diet is the popular one.

The Mediterranean diet is a modern nutritional model inspired by the traditional dietary patterns of some of the countries of the Mediterranean basin, particularly Greece and Italy. The diet is from the Greek island of Crete where Cretans and other Greeks live longer than any other populations in the world and they are 20% less likely to die of coronary artery disease than Americans. They also have 1/3 less cancer than in U.S.

Common to the diets of these regions are a high consumption of fruit and vegetables, bread, wheat and other cereals, olive oil and fish, making them low in saturated fat and high in monosaturated fat and dietary fiber.

One of the main best features of this diet is the large amount of olive oil used in it. Unlike the high amount of animal fats typical to the American diet, olive oil lowers cholesterol levels in blood. It is also known to lower blood sugar levels and blood pressure. In addition, the consumption of red wine is considered a possible factor, as it contains flavonoids with powerful antioxidant properties.

Some questions have been raised as to if the diet provides adequate amounts of all nutrients, particularly calcium and iron. Nonetheless, green vegetables, a good source of calcium and iron, are used in the Mediterranean diet as well as goat cheese, a good source of calcium. Eating red meat sparingly seems to also increase health. There is a general consensus among health professionals that the Mediterranean Diet is healthier than the Asian and American diet because more grains, such as spaghetti, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and olive oil are consumed.

piramide

Lets look at the Mediterranean diet pyramid:

The Mediterranean pyramid recommends regular physical exercise, drinking 6 glasses of water a day and moderate consumption of red wine. Purple grape juice may offer the same heart health benefits of red wine without the concerns of alcohol.

Others oils rich monounsaturated fats, such as canola or peanut oil, can be substituted by olive oil.People who are watching their weight should limit their oil consumption. Pyramid recommend eating lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains but the Greeks ate very little red meat and they consumed far more plant foods, averaging nine servings a day of antioxidant rich vegetables.

The Greeks ate cold water fish several times a week another heart healthy investment since fish contain omega 3 oils that not only reduce heart disease risk but also boast immune system functioning.

The Greek diet contains little of the two kinds of fats known to raise blood cholesterol levels: saturated fat and trans fat.

Mediterranean diet is without doubt the only option you should consider in any effort to lose weight. Many popular diets like those of high protein variety are extremely harmful and although they sometimes succeed in delivering their promises of shedding weight, the chances of keeping this weight off are very unlikely.

2 thoughts on “Mediterranean Diet- Healthy Way To Lose Weight”

  1. I try lot of things, when i was try to lose weight, but the thing that really work for me was a combination of 3 to 4 times a week sport for 30 min to 1 hour, the use of Dietitian supervised diet and a very strong will power! diet is a way of life.Good Luck,Sigal.

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