Balanced Eating Is Vital to Weight Loss
What Is Balanced Eating?
For your long-term weight loss success, it’s the ratio of
fats to carbs to proteins that’s the key. Every meal, and
ideally every snack you eat, should contain the following
proportions of calories consumed:
Fats: 30 percent
or less
Proteins: About 25-35 percent. This about the size of a deck
of playing cards of fish, meat, poultry, eggs.
Carbohydrates: 30 to 50 percent. Of these, more than half
need to be from vegetables and fruit, but not white
potatoes.
Artificial foods: Avoid when possible.
Finding Your Balance
You could figure out the proportions by counting calories,
but we don’t recommend doing this. It’s boring and can make
eating dull and lifeless.
We prefer the simpler approach of
looking at the composition of foods on your plate. If you
balance the proportions of food by type, you’ll closely match
your nutritional needs. Your protein and fat should take about
50-60 percent of your plate. The rest will be vegetables and
fruit—the carbohydrates.
Of course, you’ve got to figure in
any side salads, breads, and desserts, but we’ve found that
the plate balancing approach will keep you from loading your
plate with high-glycemic starches.