What Is Mediterranean Diet? Important Tips and Diet Plan for Beginners

The food you eat plays an essential role in your health. Weight loss or overall health, irrespective of what you are aiming for, a good diet is the one that helps you achieve your goals, keeps you satisfied and provides all the necessary nutrients. Experts believe one such diet is the Mediterranean diet. With its focus on fresh produce and healthy ingredients, the diet is known to prevent heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes and even premature deaths.  Keto Diet: What are The Best and Worst Fats to Eat for Ketosis?

What is the Mediterranean Diet?

The Mediterranean diet focus on healthy plant-based food, seafood and fish. It avoids red meat and processed food. This type of plan strictly believes in organic food. To adopt a Mediterranean lifestyle, one should also involve themselves in regular physical activity, stay happy and take less stress.

Basic Guidelines for the Mediterranean diet

Considering this diet plan, you should make a list of buying items from the market. This should include fruits-apple, banana, melons, oranges, pears, peaches, grapes to name a few and should also add veggies like tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, cucumber, etc. Consumption of nuts is also recommended. Legumes and whole grain food should also be incorporated into this diet plan. One will also have to include rich carbs like sweet potatoes and healthy fats like olive oil, avocados, olive and avocado oil. Most importantly, you have to be a seafood lover for this diet since fish like salmon, tuna, trout, shrimp, etc. is a big part of the diet.

Basic Meal Plan for the Mediterranean diet

The best part about this diet is that there are no hard and fast rules. Just avoid processed food, restrict red meat and drink lots of water. Coffee and tea are acceptable in this diet, but one should try not to add any artificial sweetener. Sugar-sweetened fruit juices and beverages are strictly prohibited in this form of diet.

Foods to be added meal wise

Breakfast: One has the option to include oatmeal with raisin and apple or have yoghurt with sliced fruits and nuts or eat an omelette with veggies and olive. Even fried eggs along with vegetables can be eaten, but make sure that the eggs are fried in olive oil.

Lunch: One can eat whole grain vegetable sandwich or tuna salad or Greek yoghurt with oats and nuts. It's essential to have variations and not stick to the same kind of menu for lunch; that will stop giving you results.

Dinner: You can include boiled salmon with brown rice and veggies or grilled tuna steaks or grilled chicken with vegetables and potato or tomato salad with olive and feta cheese.

Mediterranean diet recommends that you eat three meals a day. Apart from that, you can have snacks like carrots,  berries or apple slices with almond butter. There is no defined Mediterranean diet; however, it sticks to a fundamental principle of eating natural, local produce. You can give this diet a go for weight loss; however, it's important to note that you only lose weight if you go in a calorie deficit. Therefore, calculate the calorie of whatever you eat to avoid overeating even healthy foods.

(This article is written for an informative purpose and should not be substituted for medical advice. Kindly consult your doctor before trying any tips.)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 12, 2019 07:33 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).