Why Live Large: Live Healthy

Creating the Best Low Fat Diet for Your Lifestyle

Dieting or at least making a choice to create a healthy diet is an issue that most people will consider at least once in their lives. Creating the best low fat diet depends on the activity level of the individual, with athletes needing a much different menu than people who do not work out at all. These menus are flavorful and full of all the vitamins and minerals that a person needs in their diet. It is especially important for parents to decide on the best low fat diet menu for their families to live by since they are creating eating habits that their children will take with them for life. With childhood obesity on the rise, this issue is a growing concern for parents, and there are simple ways to create a low fat diet without making drastic changes.

Simple Steps

One way to create the best low fat diet for a family is to keep healthy snacks in the house at all times. Since children are indoors more today than ever before with the advances in entertainment and technology, they have access to food which can cause unhealthy eating habits. If cut up fruits and vegetables are readily available while high fat snacks are not, children will naturally lean toward the healthy treats which do not add much if any fat to their diet, as well as being low in calories and high in nutrients. Besides fruits and vegetables that are cut and enticing, popcorn and pretzels are some other low fat treats that children can snack on.

In addition to keeping healthy snacks in the house, parents can also make changes in how food is prepared to create the best low fat diet for their family. Using cooking spray instead of cooking oil as much as possible is one way to reduce fat. Buying low fat butter and margarine for breads, as well as peanut butter are other ways to reduce the fat that their children are eating. When buying meats, only lean cuts of meat should be used and chicken should be cooked without the skin on it. Grilling meat is another great way to reduce fat without sacrificing taste since the marinades are delicious and the fat drips off while cooking. Fish and other seafood are other excellent protein sources to use in the best low fat diet since they have very little fat content.

Dairy products are important for children in the best low fat diet, and these can also be bought in low or non fat forms. Children do need some fat in their diet because they are growing, so the pediatrician should be consulted as to what grade of fat content should be bought according to the age of the child.

Simple Changes to Make a Low Fat Diet Menu

Whether an individual is trying to lose weight or not, learning to create a low fat diet menu is an important skill to living a healthy lifestyle. There are simple ways to create this type of a menu and it does not require sacrificing taste to do it. There are many different websites and cookbooks on the market today that can also help each individual create the best low fat diet menu for them.

Reducing Fat and Preserving Taste

Many individuals who love eating meat fear that creating a low fat diet will mean that they have to cut it out altogether or that they will not be able to create their favorite dishes. There are simple ways to reduce the fat content in meat so that the same cuts can be used and the dishes can be created. With chicken, the main way to use it in a low fat diet menu is to not use the skin when cooking it. Although the skin helps to keep the meat moist while cooking, it adds extra fat to the meat which is not needed or healthy. Instead of keeping the skin on, individuals can still maintain the moistness of the meat by using a non-fat marinate while cooking, adding more of the marinade throughout the cooking process to keep the meat moist as well as flavorful. Also, not using the skin does not mean that breaded chicken is lost forever in a low fat diet menu, it merely means that there will not be skin under the crispy breading. The chicken can be cooked with the breading in the oven or by frying it in a pan with low fat cooking oil.

For red meats which are higher in fat and cholesterol, it is important to find the leanest cuts of meat possible and to reduce the amount of red meat eaten in a low fat diet menu. Trimming off the fat from all types of meat is important since it is not healthy or needed in the diet. Also, substituting turkey burger instead of hamburger is a way to reduce fat without sacrificing taste. If hamburger is desired, the leanest type should be bought, with a ten percent fat content at the highest and all excess grease drained off before using the burger in dishes after browning it.

Dairy products are also high in fat, so buying low fat or non fat dairy items is another way to reduce fat in a low fat diet menu. This allows individuals to still use these items in their dishes but it can drastically reduce the fat in their diet.

A Healthy Choice in Dieting: Low Fat, High Fiber Diet

Creating a low fat, high fiber diet usually just takes the individual making a few small changes to their choices in food and how they prepare their meals. Often, these low fat diet menus consist of taking the foods that the individual already enjoys, reduces the amounts of foods that contain harmful fats, changes the oils used to cook those foods, and adds more of the vegetables and fruits that contain high fiber content to create the low fat, high fiber diet. Many people worry that creating this type of diet will reduce their enjoyment of the foods that they eat. Nothing could be further from the truth. These diets are very flavorful and only require the individual to become educated on the types of foods and ways to prepare them that will create this type of diet without sacrificing taste.

Benefits

There are many benefits of a low fat, high fiber diet, such as preventing constipation, helps reduce the effects of digestive disorders, lowers blood cholesterol, and may also help to prevent colon cancer and other types of cancers, although the research is still unclear. In addition, a low fat, high fiber diet can help people with diabetes since it helps to control the blood sugar levels which are so dangerous to those with the disease. In addition, because the high fiber foods require more chewing time in most cases, the individual often does not eat as much, feeling full more quickly, which helps in weight loss. These foods are also usually lower in calories which also help individuals to control their weight while still maintaining a healthy body.

Creating a low fat, high fiber diet can start with a few simple changes. One change is in the way that the foods are cooked, using cooking sprays instead of cooking oils or other fats as much as possible. The choice in meats should also be as lean as possible, removing skin from chicken before cooking, cutting off extra fat on steaks, using fish as much as possible, and buying hamburger that is as lean as possible. Grilling meats is another good way to reduce fat because all of the fat drips off the meat while cooking instead of soaking into it. High fiber can be gained by buying cereals and breads that are made of whole grain rather than processed grains. Green leafy vegetables like spinach are also full of fiber, in addition to different types of beans and nuts.

Risks of a High Protein, Low Fat Diet

There are some diets in the health and wellness world today that promote eating a high protein, low fat diet to the exclusion of carbohydrates. These diets are not healthy for the individual to use in the long run, and can often cause health issues even when used for a short amount of time to lose weight. These diets are based on research that shows when the body can not gain its energy through carbohydrates like it normally does for brain and organ functions, then it will begin to burn the fat stores of the body in a process called ketosis, which means the body is burning fat instead of glucose from the carbohydrates. While this is beneficial to losing fat stores that are hard to get rid of by other means, it is not as healthy for the body as a low fat, high fiber diet would be, which is much more balanced.

Problems

It is very difficult to have a high protein, low fat diet and not obtain too much cholesterol, since there is a lot of cholesterol in high protein foods. Even if using products that are reduced fat and lean meats, there is still too much cholesterol that is obtained in a person’s diet if the majority of what the person is eating is protein. High cholesterol leads to a variety of different issues, the main ones being heart disease, strokes and even cancer.

Another problem with a high protein, low fat diet is that the calcium that is taken in through the different dairy products does not have the vitamins and minerals that are needed to bind with to maintain that calcium level. Instead, people on a high protein, low fat diet tend to excrete more calcium from their bodies which can lead to health problems such as kidney stones and also osteoporosis if the diet is consumed over a long period of time.

Other effects of a high protein, low fat diet are that the person can feel nauseous while on the diet and it can also cause bad breath. More serious issues are that, besides kidney stones and heart disease, other organs can start to fail, such as the kidneys as a whole, and it can also cause gout. The risk of cancer mentioned above is also escalated by the lack of fiber in a high protein, low fat diet, which means that there are not the vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants that the body needs to fight cancer.

Creating a Low Fat, Low Cholesterol Diet

There are many different diets on the market today that claim to be the best way for individuals to lose weight, such as a high protein, low fat diet which is usually low in carbohydrates as well. Although these diets will often achieve their claims, there are also health risks involved in going to extremes to lose weight, since the basic food groups are not met and the body has to work extra hard in some areas which can cause health problems rather than solutions. When choosing a weight loss plan, individuals should consult their doctor beforehand to make sure there are not any health situations that they need to be aware of and to discuss the nutrition of the diet plan that they are considering embarking upon.

Healthy Eating

Low fat and low cholesterol diets are a fairly good means most of the time to maintain a healthy diet but to also lose weight. The body does need some fat and good cholesterol in the diet in order to function properly, so eliminating these materials completely is not a wise choice. It is wise, however, to decrease the amounts of saturated fat and bad cholesterol that usually accompanies it in the diet so that the body can lose weight and still function properly.

There are easy ways to start to achieve a low fat low cholesterol diet. One of the best ways is to reduce the amount of red meat that is eaten since it is higher in fat and cholesterol that chicken or fish. If individuals really love red meat, they can often substitute turkey burger without being to tell much if any difference in taste. For steaks or other large cuts of meat, it is important to trim all excess fat from the meat and to prepare it without adding extra fat to the meat in a low fat, low cholesterol diet. Grilling is a great way to prepare any type of meat since it naturally allows the extra fat to be cooked off and to fall away from the meat so that the fat content is reduced.

Another way to create a low fat, low cholesterol diet is to use cooking sprays rather than oils, butter or margarine as much as possible when cooking. The cooking sprays work just as well as these other oils and have a fraction of the fat and cholesterol content and in many cases are fat and cholesterol free. When baking, there are also substitutes for oils in the breads or muffins, such as using apple sauce instead, which maintain the moistness of the breads without changing the taste.