How to Eat Vegetables and Fruits During Weight Loss and a Guide to Choosing Cooking Oil

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How to eat vegetables and fruits during a weight loss period

How to eat vegetables

From a weight loss perspective, vegetables can be broadly categorized into three types: low-calorie, high-satiety, and high-starch.

Low-calorie

These types of vegetables are highly nutritious, including fungi and algae such as various mushrooms, wood ear fungus, kelp, and nori; bulbous vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, and purple cabbage; fresh beans such as green beans, snow peas, cowpeas, and broad beans; and various leafy green vegetables such as celery, spinach, water spinach, amaranth, bok choy, and kale. These vegetables are high in fiber, low in calories, and very filling, helping to regulate the intestines and relieve constipation while aiding in weight loss.

High satiety foods

Examples include cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbages, zucchini, and lettuce.

These types of vegetables have slightly lower nutritional value and fiber content than leafy greens. However, they are high in water content and very low in calories, so you can eat more of them during a weight loss period without gaining weight.

high starch

These types of vegetables are high in starch and can be used to replace part of your staple food during weight loss. However, they should not be eaten as vegetables in the traditional sense, as starch is a type of sugar. Examples include sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams, taro, corn, lotus root, water chestnuts, carrots, and pumpkin. They are recommended as a staple food replacement because they are higher in fiber and vitamins than rice and white flour, and provide a longer-lasting feeling of fullness.

During cooking, vegetables lose a significant amount of water-soluble vitamins. This is because vitamins C, B₂, and folic acid in vegetables are all water-soluble and sensitive to high temperatures. Therefore, a general principle is to avoid heating vegetables whenever possible. To minimize vitamin loss, wash vegetables before cutting them to retain more nutrients; tear vegetables by hand if possible, and cut them into larger pieces if possible. Use low-temperature cooking methods that primarily utilize water, and minimize high-temperature cooking methods that primarily utilize oil.

How to eat fruit

Many people try to replace dinner or breakfast with fruit while trying to lose weight, but this often proves ineffective and they fail to lose weight. This is because many believe that fruit is low in calories and that replacing regular meals will reduce energy intake, creating a negative energy balance and promoting fat breakdown. However, the result is not only hunger but also poor weight loss.

Eating only fruit will result in insufficient protein intake, leading to nutritional imbalances over time. A long-term fruit-only diet can also lower blood pressure and cause irregular or absent menstruation in women.

While losing weight by eating only fruit is fast, the weight also comes back quickly.

The human body absorbs fructose very quickly, and you get hungry very fast. Normally, you'll feel dizzy and lightheaded from hunger in less than two hours. Fructose causes a decrease in insulin and leptin levels and an increase in ghrelin levels, so eating large amounts of fruit can actually lead to weight gain.

Fruits and vegetables cannot be substituted

Although vegetables and fruits share many similarities in nutritional composition and health effects, they are not the same type of food and their sugar content differs. There are far more varieties of vegetables than fruits, and in a typical diet, dark green vegetables contain higher levels of vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals than fruits. Fruits contain more sugars, organic acids, and aromatic compounds than fresh vegetables, and they can be eaten without heating. Vegetables and fruits each have their own nutritional advantages, so they cannot replace each other.

Processed fruit products and fruit juices cannot replace fresh fruit.

Processed products like canned fruit, dried fruit, and preserved fruit suffer significant damage to vitamins and minerals during the sugaring process, and their sugar content becomes extremely high, making them not only ineffective for weight loss but also likely to cause weight gain. Fruit juice, made by pressing various fruits to remove pulp, suffers from substantial loss of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals; consuming fruit juice instead of whole fruit means losing some of the nutritional value of the fruit.

When is the best time to eat fruit?

Most people's breakfasts are of low quality, so it's recommended to add some fruit. If you're trying to control your weight, you can eat some fruit before lunch. Having fruit as a snack between meals can replenish nutrients and water, and also keep you feeling full. Note that you should still control your fruit intake while trying to lose weight, otherwise it will hinder your weight loss efforts.

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How to Choose Cooking Oil

Edible oils are divided into animal oils and vegetable oils.

Animal fats have a stable structure and are suitable for frying, but they are rich in saturated fatty acids and are not suitable for people with "three highs" (high blood lipids, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar). Therefore, it is recommended that obese people avoid them as much as possible.

Vegetable oils have an unstable structure and are suitable for steaming and stir-frying. However, excessively high temperatures can easily destroy their nutritional value. Nevertheless, they are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, which are more beneficial to the human body.

For daily consumption, we recommend using primarily vegetable oils, and frequently changing the types used. The main component of cooking oil is fatty acids, which come in many varieties, such as alpha-linolenic acid, linoleic acid, DHA, and EPA. The proportions of these fatty acids vary from oil to oil. For health, it's important not to focus on consuming only one or a few specific fatty acids, but rather to achieve a balance among them.

No cooking oil is absolutely perfect. Relatively speaking, olive oil, camellia oil, and walnut oil are rich in omega-9 monounsaturated fatty acids, which can lower bad cholesterol in the blood and are beneficial to cardiovascular health.

Other oils include sunflower oil, peanut oil, corn oil, and soybean oil, each with a different fatty acid composition and nutritional value. To achieve a balanced fatty acid profile and thus promote a balanced diet, it is essential to consume a variety of cooking oils.

Regardless of the type of oil used for cooking, according to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents," the recommended daily intake of fat for healthy adults is 25-30 grams, and 15-20 grams is recommended during a weight loss period. This requires us to reduce the use of high-temperature cooking methods that use a lot of oil, such as frying and deep-frying, and to adopt more low-temperature cooking methods such as steaming, boiling, stewing, and braising, which use less oil.