J.30/ How to Maintain a Healthy Weight
Whether you’re needing help with weight management, maintaining the same weight or needing help with bulking, this blog is for you! I’ll give you a Naturopaths perspective on healthy eating, diet fads and ways to help with your metabolism.
Regardless of if you’re needing to maintain, lose or gain weight at the heart of all these is the foundation for a healthy diet and lifestyle, without general wellbeing we can’t expect our bodies to maintain health. From a Naturopaths view, things such as adequate water, sunlight, exercise and a diet full of wholefoods is the goal for health. With these ideals as our base we can then personalise this for each client depending on exactly what they’re wanting to achieve. The goal is to not to follow a strict diet per say more about making sustainable changes that your lifestyle can adapt to.
Let’s talk weight management and weight maintaining, after all these years I still stick by everything in moderation as the key, I still feel you need to allow yourself treats and indulge in foods that you love while majority of the time eating as well as you can. My ideal ratio is eating clean 80% of the time and indulge yourself 20% of the time, eating in this ratio allows you to get the best from both worlds and this tends to avoid binge eating. Eating clean involves eating fresh and seasonal vegetables such as green leafy vegetables, complex carbohydrates such as quinoa brown rice and sweet potato and good quality protein as your main areas. Your snacks and fillers should include fresh and seasonal fruit, good quality dairy, nuts and seeds. Indulging yourself in that 20% of the time ideally would be still aiming for home cooked things such as pastas, high fat meals or perhaps home baked cakes or muffins. Keeping packaging to a minimum is a great idea as you then know exactly what has gone into that meal and I quite often find it’s less sugar, fat and salt used.
If you’re aiming for weight management I’d highly suggest to reduce if not all together not consume alcohol as this is empty calories and takes quite the toll on the liver, even if you’re within consuming the Australian guidelines there is no time where alcohol benefits your body. Soft drinks and juice are also empty calories, they do not provide you with nutrition but carry lots of sugar. Ideally if you can live without these drinks it would be best to keep this at a minimum. If you’re struggling with plain water I’d suggest trying cold water, soda water or adding a splash of flavour such as lime or raspberry.
I talk about protein a lot and for good reason, whether your trying to lose weight, maintain weight or put on weight chances are you’ll be needing to increase your dietary intake of protein. Most people don’t hit their recommended amount of daily protein, protein can be from meat, dairy, nuts and seeds, legumes or protein powders. Sometimes it can be difficult to eat enough protein with every meal which is why I often suggest to my clients to include a protein powder, lucky for us now there are so many different types of whey based, vegan and even water protein powder options. Protein can help boost your metabolism, keep you fuller for longer, help with muscle growth, reduce sugar spikes and can even help improve your mood.
In terms of bulking, trying to increase muscle mass or simply trying to increase your weight, putting on weight isn’t all about eating bad foods to increase your calories there are ways to eat more calories in a heathy way. For most people this means increasing your protein, complex carbohydrates and good fats, by doing this you’re including more calories but of good foods. I usually suggest to aim for 3 main meals and then lots of snacks in between, again using protein powders can be really helpful here in bulking up your calories without actually consuming more solid food.
Whether you’re keen on maintaining, being in a deficit for weight loss or wanting to add on size, you can do so in a healthy way. These guidelines are very basic and merely my experience with treating patients regarding this matter. For individual specific support I’d highly recommend a consultation www.sarahlisternaturopath.com.au/booking for more details on exact foods and amounts to get you on your journey to success.
