5 reasons to follow the Mediterranean diet
Losing and maintaining weight can be a challenging task as one wrong decision can derail your efforts. It is essential to eat right and exercise to reach your goal in a healthy manner. However, the onus here lies on eating right as your weight loss journey depends on what you eat. So, if you need a diet that allows you to eat healthily but doesn’t deprive your taste buds of good food, you should the Mediterranean diet.
The Mediterranean diet, as the name suggests, is inspired by the people from the Mediterranean region. It is a relatively hassle-free diet as it doesn’t involve drastic changes to your diet. Also, this diet consists of consuming fresh food like vegetables and even bread. These reasons should be enough for anyone to craft their own Mediterranean diet chart right away.
There’s no need to count calories
The best part of following this diet is that you can ditch the calorie calculator. Instead of counting the calories you consume, all you have to do is swap the bad fats for healthy ones. For instance, you can replace butter with olive oil and try fish or white meat instead of red meat. You can skip sugary foods and eat fresh fruits to satisfy your cravings for sweets. Moreover, you can even eat whole-grain bread and have wine, but in moderation.
You’ll eat only really fresh food
With the Mediterranean diet, you will be eating only fresh food. You don’t have to rely on packaged or frozen foods. Instead, you get to binge on seasonal foods, which are easy yet mouth watering. You can make a delicious salad with fresh spinach, tomatoes, and cucumbers. You can even add classic Greek ingredients to it like feta cheese or black olives.
Bread is a part of your diet
Most diets require you to skip bread completely. However, with the Mediterranean diet, you need not do that. Choose bread made of whole grains as it has more proteins and minerals and is healthier than white flour. You can try whole-grain pita bread with olive oil dipped in hummus or tahini.
Fat is not demonized
With this diet, you don’t have to cut down on fats completely. Instead, you can look for foods that have good fats, like nuts, olives, avocados, etc. Since these do not contain saturated or trans fats that you find in processed foods, it can be consumed. Moreover, healthy fats help in adding flavor to the food and even helps fight diseases like diabetes and cancer.
A wide variety to choose from
The best part of opting for the Mediterranean diet is that you can keep experimenting with food. As there are plenty of options, it is hard to get tired of this diet easily. Look for recipes from Turkey, Morocco, Spain, etc. However, ensure that you stick to the basics and go easy on the consumption of red meat and whole fat dairy.