What Can Traditional Healthy Foods Do For Your Weight?

Weight loss has become a much-debated topic in the modern world, thanks in large part to the considerable number of expanding waistlines in this country and across the globe.  However, not all diets are good for you.  Some can be downright harmful to your body as well as to your long term chances of health. 

Perhaps the best option is to simply eat traditional healthy foods.  So what are these, and can they actually help you with weight loss?

First, traditional healthy foods are generally whole foods.  That means they are not pre-prepared, so they do not include processed flour or fat, nor do they contain processed sugars or artificial chemicals, preservatives and additives.  Avoiding these substances is an important part of attaining real, lasting weight loss.

You will find that traditional healthy foods include almost all vegetables (fresh or frozen), as well as things that modern diets frown upon, for instance carbs such as potatoes and granola.  Even meat can be counted as a healthy food when it comes from a local butcher that buys meat direct from your local rural farm, rather than from a modern meat-processing plant that stuffs the growing animals with growth hormones and antibiotics.  While these are few and far between these days, it’s certainly worth driving a few miles out of your way to find one.

However, while traditional foods are certainly a key ingredient in weight loss, eating whole foods is not the only thing that you should be doing.  Portion control is often overlooked in the battle against obesity, but it is an essential ingredient.  Too much of a good thing is still too much.  Therefore, if you are piling your plate high with steak and potatoes, you can certainly expect that you will continue to gain weight.  The right portion size for a piece of meat or a serving of vegetables is about the size of your clenched fist – far smaller than what most people are used to eating.

Another key ingredient in attaining weight loss is to get up and get active.  No matter what you eat, if you do not burn off excess calories, you will never achieve weight loss.  Sometimes, the old-fashioned remedies are the best.