Food for losing weight must meet very specific criteria. No, they don’t necessarily have to be low in fat. Calories don’t always matter. And it doesn’t have to be special ready-made shakes either. Food for losing weight should not only help you lose weight but also be healthy at the same time.
Foods that help you lose weight
It has long been known that the usual diets are neither healthy nor sustainable. So your results are by no means permanent. Of course, we also know that a change in diet towards an alkaline-excessive and natural diet would be best – not only for a slim figure but also for health.
If only it weren’t for the time pressure, the daily rush, the unavailable sources of fresh groceries and all the other excuses that come to mind as to why a change in diet is completely impossible right now.
Are you one of those people who would like to be permanently slim, but at the same time just don’t have the nerve for a complete and permanent change in diet?
Then postpone the complete change in diet until later and concentrate on the following nine foods for the time being and integrate them regularly into your usual diet. You will see: Success will come eventually!
Nine foods that make you slim
The following nine foods all have the right properties to help you lose weight in a healthy way:
- They are very filling.
- They prevent food cravings.
- They regulate blood sugar levels.
- They curb appetite.
- They even improve mood.
- And what is most important: they taste good!
In short: The best foods for losing weight provide everything you need in times of weight loss in order to be able to lose weight successfully and healthily.
1. Whole grains for weight loss
Before we get to the really exciting foods that can help you lose weight, first the tried and tested whole grain products, which – compared to white flour products – significantly promote the feeling of satiety thanks to their high fibre content.
White flour consists of isolated carbohydrates. The body can absorb and digest them quickly, and shortly thereafter it will report hunger again, even though it has just taken in a lot of calories.
Whole grain products, on the other hand, consist mainly of complex carbohydrates. The gastrointestinal tract takes much longer to digest them. In this way, not only does the feeling of satiety last longer, but the blood sugar level also remains much more constant.
Of course, this has long been scientifically proven, e.g. by Swedish researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm ( 1 ).
According to the study of 41 normal-weight adults, the greater the proportion of whole grains in a meal, the longer it keeps you full. This also reduces the calorie intake at the subsequent meal.
Interestingly, this satiating effect was particularly strong when the test subjects had consumed only a small wholemeal meal.
Whole grain products often contain very special dietary fibres – the so-called beta-glucans (especially in barley and oats).
Beta-glucans are very good at curbing hunger pangs — a fact verified by Canadian and Australian researchers in a study of fourteen adults (2 ) .
The calorie intake at the following meal could be reduced by around 100 kilocalories if the test subjects previously ingested beta-glucans because these promoted the release of cholecystokinin – a hormone that inhibits appetite.
Beta-glucans are very easily absorbed with activated Barley. Just stir some activated barley over your soups – which not only helps you lose weight but also tastes delicious.
2. Konjac noodles for losing weight – alkaline and calorie-free
Konjac noodles are made from the konjac root, an Asian root vegetable.
A portion of konjac noodles contains just ten kilocalories – that’s fewer calories than the same amount of cucumbers.
Normal pasta, on the other hand, provides fifteen times as many calories.
Konjac is not only available in noodle form, but also in powder form or as capsules. So if you don’t want to eat pasta every day, simply take konjac as a capsule or stir the powder into your daily shake or smoothie.
Konjak is not only carbohydrate and almost calorie-free. Konjac also massively increases the feeling of satiety and also binds fats in the digestive system – which can compensate for other high-calorie meals.
3. Psyllium Husk to lose weight
Psyllium Husks help you lose weight in the same way as konjac: They fill you up, but contain hardly any calories themselves.
At the same time, psyllium husks stimulate digestion that is too slow, but they also have a healing effect on diarrhea and also sanitize the intestines. Therefore, psyllium husks are often part of intestinal cleansing.
It should also be part of your diet if you suffer from metabolic syndrome, which describes the four most widespread complaints of civilization: obesity, high blood pressure, high blood lipid levels and high blood sugar levels.
Psyllium Husks can simply be taken with a lot(!) of water about 15 – 30 minutes before a meal.
You will see that you can only eat half afterwards.
4. Healthy weight loss shakes
Weight loss shakes can support weight loss very well. The important thing is that you choose a healthy weight loss shake. Because many weight loss shakes are full of superfluous substances, such as flavours, thickeners, sweeteners or even sugar. Most weight loss shakes are based on soy protein or whey protein. The former should not be eaten in large quantities, the latter is not suitable for a vegan diet.
We, therefore, recommend a combination of purely vegetable protein powder that is still soy-free. It could consist of rice protein, pea protein and sunflower seed protein. And ideally is supplemented by konjac powder, which has been proven to contribute to weight loss with daily consumption of 3 g. A weight loss shake should only be sweetened with healthy sweeteners like stevia and erythritol.
5. Legumes to lose weight
Legumes such as beans and peas also have a very filling effect. This was shown in a meta-analysis by Canadian scientists, who compared the results of different scientific studies.
It turned out that the consumption of legumes increased the feeling of satiety by a third. No wonder, after a meal containing legumes, test subjects took a much longer break between meals than people who did not eat legumes ( 3 ).
6. Almonds to lose weight – The healthy snack that makes you slim
With a good 500 calories per 100 g, almonds are of course quite high in calories. Nonetheless, unlike candy bars, cookies, and other unhealthy snacks, snacking on almonds does NOT lead to weight gain.
Therefore, if you get hungry between meals, it is better to use almonds than the confectionery mentioned.
This is also the advice of the Australian and US researchers in a study that not only proved that almonds, despite their high-calorie content, did not result in weight gain.
They also brought to light that almonds can stimulate the metabolism of the test subjects – which of course is the alpha and omega of a diet.
Even if you eat almonds instead of whole grain products (each with the same amount of calories), you lose weight much better with almonds – as a study with 65 overweight people showed. They ate 84 grams of almonds or whole grains with the same calorie content per day.
After six months, the almond group had lost 62 percent more weight than the whole grain group.
Further studies have also shown that almonds have a positive effect on bone density and cholesterol levels ( 4 ).
7. Saffron for weight loss and good mood
Appetite does not arise in an empty stomach, but in the head. This is why stress and a bad mood often make us crave high-calorie snacks.
Women are particularly affected by this phenomenon. Some people, therefore, resort to harmful drugs that are supposed to have an appetite-suppressing effect.
This is not necessary at all, as the results of a scientific study from France show. Slightly overweight study participants reported a significant decrease in appetite for snacks when consuming saffron extract daily ( 5 ).
The researchers explain that the extract improved the mood of the test subjects and was able to curb the need for unhealthy snacks. In this way, the saffron extract brought about a reduction in body weight.
8. Korean Pine Nuts for Weight Loss
Korean pine nuts also suppress appetite. This was shown by a Dutch study of eighteen overweight women. For up to four hours after ingesting the Korean pine nuts, the researchers were able to detect increased levels of satiety hormones in the participants’ blood ( 6 ).
The polyunsaturated fatty acids from the pine nuts reduced the appetite of the test subjects by about a third.
However, it must be Korean pine nuts, as the study showed. Polyunsaturated fatty acids from olive oil had no corresponding effect on the hormonal balance.
9. Coconut oil for weight loss
Unlike other fats, coconut oil is not stored in the body’s fat stores, but – similar to carbohydrates – is used to generate energy.
If the body wanted to get the coconut oil into the fat reservoirs (fat tissue), it would first have to convert it into storage fat. The organism, therefore, prefers to treat and burn coconut oil like carbohydrates.
The big advantage of this is that coconut oil does not raise the blood sugar level – like carbohydrates tend to do – and therefore cannot lead to cravings.
In contrast to the omega-6 fatty acids, which are very plentiful in sunflower oil or safflower oil and slow down the metabolism, coconut oil activates the metabolism – which in turn is ideal when it comes to losing weight.
Coconut oil goes particularly well in the hot kitchen. It can be heated to a high temperature and can therefore also be used for roasting and deep-frying.
Cabbage soup to lose weight?
It is said that cabbage soup is an excellent way to lose weight. Therefore, the so-called cabbage soup diet is propagated again and again. You eat mainly fat-free cabbage soup for a week – from morning to night. Of course, cabbage soups can be wonderfully integrated into any healthy diet that will sooner or later lead to a normal weight, but the cabbage soup diet, which is usually carried out for a week, is not recommended.
It is a crash diet that will “reward” you with short-term success in losing weight, but in the long term with a clear yo-yo effect.
Keeping your colon and microbiome at optimum health
In any weight loss attempt, making sure that your bowel habits are optimal and that your microbiome is working for you is key to success. This is where regular colonics with a professionally trained practitioner can make all the difference.
