This How Eating Veggies Helps You Lose Weight post is for you if lasting weight loss is your goal!
If you’ve been a weight loss client of mine, now or in the past, then you I’m all about including veggies in your meal plan. In fact, I recommend everyone eats 6-8 servings daily.
To any client I’ve ever worked with, this prescribed amount of veggies has always come as a surprise. This is because our culture has forgotten what it means to eat a healthy, balanced diet. A diet that includes a wide array of vegetables because we are so addicted to sugar and processed foods.
Whether you’re following the custom nutrition template I give my clients, or tracking macros or calories, you know vegetables are a large part of what you should eat for fat loss. Most people following a standard American diet are simply not eating enough. One to two vegetables are the average amount I see with my clients. If that’s you, eating veggies helps you lose weight so you need to make that more of a priority!
While macronutrients (protein/carbohydrates/fat) are important, they are not everything. Micronutrients are a HUGE component when it comes to weight loss.
Here’s How Vegetables Help You Lose Weight!
Flood the Body with Nutrients in a Deficit
To lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. If you’re in a deficit, we want to prioritize good nutrition and consuming plenty of vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants through uptaking your consumption of vegetables.
Vegetables Keep Hormones Balanced
When your goal is to lose body fat, it’s important to keep satiety up. With my clients, I use a specific nutrient timing protocol to help with this. Including lots of fibrous veggies in your diet will help keep you full and satisfied.
Vegetables are nutrient-dense, but not calorically-dense. Eating a four ounce grilled chicken breast on top of a huge bowl of mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, shredded carrots and potatoes will fill you up much more than a plate of chicken and broccoli alone.
Vegetables along with my biggest diet secret keep hormones balanced and cravings away. Keeping hormones balanced is key when it comes to weight loss. Not calories or macros or fasting or cutting carbs or exercising hours daily.
I’ve talked a lot about the importance of eating for your hormones on my podcast, free weight loss training and Facebook videos. If you’re not eating in a way that keeps your hormones balanced, then the calories, exercise, carb cutting, fasting, detoxes etc. none of it matters.
Increased Fiber
Fiber is a great way to detoxify the body and it’s been proven for decades to aid in weight loss. I share this research in my free weight loss training class.
Why is fiber so important? The liver can only detox the body so much. Often, people who are overweight have a toxic build up. This build up is due to the liver not being able to keep up so it creates a traffic jam. The liver needs to be functioning optimally to lose weight so it can break down and filter fat. If you have toxic build up, it becomes difficult to lose weight. Fiber supports the liver in breaking down and releasing toxins, removing excess hormones and removing fat.
Vegetables Increase Anti-estrogens
Vegetables are a great source of anti-estrogens. Anti-estrogens flush toxins from the body. Most people need this extra support due to toxic build up in their bodies. Too many medications, exposure to environmental toxins, toxins that leak into the body from skincare products or eating to many refined, processed or sugary foods can contribute to this.
Improved Insulin Sensitivity
My clients know I’m all about becoming as insulin sensitive as we can in order to help with weight loss. Eating fibrous veggies can help to improve insulin sensitivity. Improving your hormonal profile will not only help with weight loss now, but help you maintain a slimmer waistline in the long run.
Here’s a few ways to get more veggies in at each meal:
At Breakfast: Include a variety of veggies cooked in your eggs, add them to smoothies or eat them with cottage cheese.
At Lunch: a BIG salad with protein. I love a big bowl of lettuce with tuna, cucumber, cabbage, carrots, sprouts, broccoli and potatoes. Soup is great too!
At Dinner: Sheet pan veggie dinners like this one with rice or potatoes with it.
I chop a bunch of veggies on Sundays, or at the beginning of the week, toss them with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them so I have them ready for meals and snacks.
At Snack Time: Make a point to eat any snack you eat with a veggie. Keep a veggie tray in your fridge for easy access and convenient snacking or use the roasting method I mentioned above.
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