How to Lose Weight on Plant-Based Nutrition

In general, individuals who are on a plant-based nutrition tend to consume fewer calories than individuals who consume animal protein since most of their calories are coming from healthier options and fewer calories per weight. Not all plant-based food is healthy, here’s a few suggestions to increase your change of losing weight on a plant-based nutrition.

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables 

Experts in nutrition all across the world agree that the insufficient consumption of fruits and vegetables contribute to the obesity epidemic and chronic disease related to poor nutrition, especially in our country. Plant-based eating means that you have a large proportion of your meal that comes from plant-based food. To fight weight gain, reach the recommended daily intake of 400 g of fruits and vegetable. 

Reduce Your Sodium 

Sodium might be considered a plant-based food but there is a strong warning to decrease our consumption so that we don’t exceed the requirements of 2300 mg of sodium consumption daily. That said, it is important to understand that plant-based food doesn’t always mean healthy food. According to some research, individuals who eat a plant-based nutrition with reduce sodium consumption (2300 mg a day) showed a reduction in blood pressure and increased weight loss. 

Reduce Your Sugar 

Sugar is the other plant-based food to beware of. It is recommended to stick to less than 50 g of sugar a day. We challenge you to start looking at the labels of the food you eat on a daily basis and identify the amount of sugar intake you get from those foods. Many companies hide the ingredient by using multiple names to describe the sugar added, they use at least 60 names for sugar on labels. By reducing your sugar intake, you increase your chance of losing weights and staying healthy while preventing chronic disease. Reading labels can be difficult, look for the word sugar on the nutrition label, you will be able to identify how many grams of sugar is in the product.

While thousands of research demonstrate the health benefit of consuming vegetables as a way to be healthy, many still refuse to change their nutrition to increase our quality of life. Too many people believe that exercising, medication and supplements are sufficient to maintain health. Meanwhile, experts in the field of health and wellness say that weight management is 75% nutrition and 25% exercise. 

Seema Carolina Rocha