Healthy Weight Losing Diet

A healthy weight losing diet may comprise of foods with complex carbohydrate, protein, fiber with limited fat and no sugar.

To be healthy a diet should be delicious and varied — meaning it involves the appropriate amounts of all of the food groups. The diet should contain sufficient and balanced nutrients to maintain body functions but contain no ingredients that may cause health disturbance. Fat, essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids should be available in sufficient amount, while trans fat, excessive saturated fat, directly poisonous and carcinogenic substances, or contamination of human pathogens should be avoided.

Fat consumption should be kept minimum in a weight losing diet as it is very dense with calories, hence promotes weight gain. Moreover, excess calories from dietary fat will be stored as body fat more efficiently than excess calories from other sources. “Good fat” such as monounsaturated fat, or MUFA, as in olive oil and nuts, is strongly advised, or even must be added at every meal as in Flat Belly Diet. South Beach Diet still allows low in saturated-fat foods such as lean red meat, skinless chicken and reduced-fat cheeses. Sugary snacks, pastries or soft drinks, which also rich in calories, and processed lunch meats, hot dogs, bacon, and sausages, which have too much of saturated fat and nitrates should be kept away from the diet unless available in healthier versions.

High-fiber foods such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains are important in weight losing diet because fiber helps disposing excessive fat and improving elimination so fat absorption from our digestive tracts is limited. Lean meats and poultry, fish, peas and nuts, and fat-free or 1 percent fat dairy products are rich in protein, so you need them to maintain body functions. The closer a food is to its natural state the better it is for you. The best beverages are water, milk and 100% fruit and vegetable juices.

Some weight losing diets, such as Atkins Diet suggests low-carbohydrate consumption as it is based on the theory that overweight people eat too many carbohydrates. While others, like South Beach Diet, emphasizes the consumption of "good carbohydrates" in addition to "good fats". Low-sugar carbs -- those with a low glycaemic index, such as pasta, pulses and porridge -- slowly release sugar into the blood, provide a steady supply of energy and leave satisfied feeling for longer that dieters don't constantly feel hungry and are less likely to overeat; plus this avoid the body from become resistant to the effects of insulin with the result that it continues to burn fat efficiently. They are therefore recommended if you want to lose weight.