The Mediterranean Diet Guide – Improve Your Quality of Life
By following the Mediterranean Diet Guide, you can actually enjoy getting healthy by learning how to eat well-balanced, nutritious meals that can significantly lower your risk for many diseases. The Mediterranean Diet is based and structured around the lifestyle habits in countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. The diet emphasizes learning how to eat healthy and is often referred to as the heart healthy diet option.
While most diets do teach participants to eat healthier, the Mediterranean Diet is different because of the diverse selection of appetizing foods and drinks that can be consumed while losing weight, all of which are healthy for the body, and all while not being hungry. The diet has very few dietary restrictions, so favorite foods can be enjoyed, but in moderation. The diet’s emphasis is on making a lifestyle change to make the right meal and snack selections by choosing low fat, low cholesterol foods that are nutritionally healthy, yet tasty and fulfilling, leaving the dieter satisfied. The ultimate goal of the Mediterranean Diet is to improve overall long-term health and well-being.
Mediterranean Diet Gudie Basics
The diet has a few main components that are essential in following in order to be successful in losing weight and becoming healthier. These essentials include:
Eating Foods that are Plant Based
• The majority of the meals on the Mediterranean Diet will consist of plant-based foods. A goal should be to have no less than ten servings of fruits and vegetables each day, and can also include beans, salads and nuts in moderation. All pastas, cereals, and breads eaten need to be whole grain.
Using Healthy Oils for Cooking and Flavor
• Use healthy oils, such as olive or canola, as a butter or lard substitution. Flavored oils can be used on whole grain pasta for enhanced taste.
Flavoring Foods with Herbs and Spices
• As an alternative to salts, herbs and spices, such as garlic, onions, mint, and basil, are a much healthier, not to mention tastier, option to flavor foods.
Eating Fish or Poultry
• Fish or poultry should be a main dish at a meal at least two times per week. Tuna, salmon, trout, and grilled chicken are all good options. Fried fish and poultry should be avoided unless it is sautéed in only a small amount of canola or olive oil.
Avoiding High Fat Meats as Much as Possible
• Red meats should be avoided and not eaten more than one time per week, but less than that would be optimal. When eaten, it is important to make certain it is lean. Make sure portions are nominal, no larger than a deck of cards. Bacon and sausage should also be avoided.
Drinking Red Wine in Moderation
• Not obligatory, but optional, is to have an occasional glass of red wine, if your physician gives you the okay to do so. Sugar free fruit juices can be an alternative to wine if desired.
Aside from the above, there are other daily considerations to make while on the Mediterranean Diet; one of these is exercise. While not essentially included in the diet plan, daily exercise of least 30 minutes is definitely a recommendation and will only aid in improving health and with weight loss efforts. In addition, when choosing foods, be consciences of your decisions. Dairy products should be low fat, and higher fat dairy products should be limited. Instead, opt for skim milk, low or fat free cheeses, and fat free yogurts.
The Mediterranean Diet does not place a cap on total daily fat consumption, as many diet plans do. Instead, it is about making sensible choices in the type of fat eaten. Saturated and trans fats are highly discouraged on the diet, as they both are contributors to heart disease. The use of canola oil is promoted in the plan, as it contains a type of omega 3 fatty acid, proven to improve the health of the body’s circulatory system, providing significant benefits. Olive oil is mostly promoted on the diet, as it contains monounsaturated fat, which can decrease LDL cholesterol levels when used instead of trans or saturated fat.
Mediterranean Diet Guide Beverages
Low or no calorie drinks are permissible on the diet. Of course, water, but also flavored seltzer, diet iced tea with lemon or diet soft drinks. Caffeinated coffee or teas should not exceed three eight-ounce cups per day. There is not limit on the amount of un-caffeinated coffees or teas. However, sugar and creamer should be limited unless it is a sugar substitute or 1 percent milk.
Mediterranean Diet Meal Samples
A typical breakfast for a person following the Mediterranean Diet might consist of a fruit filed bowl of oatmeal topped with almonds, or it might be a non-fat yogurt filled with berries and granola. Lunch may be a frozen veggie potpie or a fresh green salad topped with grilled chicken and olive oil as dressing. Dinner might be a shrimp salad, consisting of fresh romaine lettuce topped with grilled shrimp, marinated overnight in basil, vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice, and served with a helping of fruit. Snack ideas are pita bread with vegetables, such as carrots, or berries, non-fat yogurts, or baby carrots. The idea behind, and the reason so many success stories arise from those on the Mediterranean diet is that the food you get to eat is enjoyable and savory. The dieter does not feel deprived of “good” foods, as is the case with most diets, but instead, feels as if they are enjoying food more than ever before.
The Mediterranean Diet is meant to be approached as a lifestyle change, but without anything radical having to take place. Once adapted to the lifestyle of the Mediterranean’s, which includes finding self-completion in exercise and through encouraging relationships in addition to the eating habits, it is unlikely you will go back into unhealthy, ultimately life-threatening habits as before. This is because the Mediterranean Diet provides a pleasurable way to live and eat and does not feel like a “diet”, as other diet plans do. Following the Mediterranean Diet Guide can be the most preeminent decision of your life.