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Tired of eating on poor diets that only harm your health and put a dent in your wallet? If yes, it’s about time you shifted to the Mediterranean diet. That said, let’s take a closer look at the diet to understand what it is exactly, how to implement it, and the benefits that it offers. So, let’s get started:
What Exactly is A Mediterranean Diet?
The Mediterranean diet is a healthy diet that’s built around fruits (including dried fruits), nuts, vegetables, fish, seafood, whole grains, and legumes. Apart from those, this diet allows moderate consumption of poultry and dairy foodstuffs.
Foods Included in the Mediterranean Diet
Just like any other diet, the Mediterranean diet includes only a certain variety of foods. This powerful weight loss diet that was inspired by the food consumption habits of the ancient people who lived near the Mediterranean ocean focuses majorly on fruits(including dried fruits), vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts, whole grains, herbs, and spices. Apart from those, it also focuses on fish and other seafood, bread, and some ingestible essential oils like extra virgin olive oil. It’s also important to note that, apart from the above foodstuffs, the diet also includes yogurt, eggs, poultry, and cheese. It also allows the consumption of red meat but only once in a blue moon.
How to Get Started with A Mediterranean Diet
Getting started with the Mediterranean diet is as easy as mastering the following rules and incorporating the foods below in your meal plan:
Rule Number 1: Take plenty of fruits (dried fruits included), vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fish, seafood, essential oils, spices, herbs, potatoes, legumes, and bread. For breakfasts, you can take fresh fruit juice and bread. Feel free to alternate fruit juices with vegetable smoothies. For your after-breakfast snacking needs, you can eat nuts, alternating them with dried fruits and seeds. For lunches, you can consume spiced fish with a vegetable salad and brown rice or any other suitable whole grains. Last but not least, for dinners, your meals can be entirely seafood.
Rule Number 2: Eat poultry foodstuffs cheese, and yogurt in moderation. You can include eggs made in any form (can be omelets, fried eggs, or boiled eggs) as well as cheese in your breakfasts, occasionally. Likewise, you are allowed to substitute your snacks with yogurt once in a while.
Rule Number 3: Take red meat only rarely. You can substitute your fish or seafood delicacies with red meat maybe twice or thrice a month.
Rule Number 4: Avoid taking sugar-sweetened beverages, processed meats, added sugars, refined oils, refined grains, and other highly processed foods. Sugar-sweetened beverages are those such as sodas and bottled juices whereas processed meats are those such as sausages, hot dogs, corned beef, and canned meat. Added sugars include corn sweeteners, malt syrups, corn syrups, brown sugars, and processed honey. Refined oils are those such as hydrogenated oils, organic vegetable oils, organic canola oils, soybean oils, and more. You can check out a full list of refined oils here. Refined grains are grain products made from grains that have been modified from their natural composition as a result of being subjected to various processes such as grinding or selective sifting.
Mediterranean Diet Benefits
1. Highly Effective
The Mediterranean diet actually helps followers lose weight and enjoy lasting results as suggested by many pieces of feedback online. On April 7, 2019, an anonymous reader of shape.com pointed out that the 7-day Mediterranean diet meal plan they had been following did enable them to lose almost 33 pounds in just 1 month. You can view their full remarks by clicking here.
2. Promotes Health
According to this website, the Mediterranean diet provides a number of health benefits. For instance, this diet helps prevent diabetes, reduce Alzheimer’s risk not to mention the fact that it promotes a strong, healthy heart.
3. Easy to Implement
You will love the fact that the Mediterranean diet is relatively easy to implement despite sounding very complex. After all, all the foods that are included are readily available in your local grocery stores as well as online.
4. Affordable
There is no getting away from the fact that the Mediterranean diet is one of the most affordable healthy diets available. The foods that this diet focuses on are generally very cheap. In fact, they are cheaper than the foods that it avoids such as sugar-sweetened beverages, processed meats, added sugars, refined oils, refined grains, and other highly processed foods.
The Mediterranean diet is a diet that helps you save money by avoiding expensive foodstuffs that are in fact only doing harm to your health. By staying away from sugar-sweetened beverages, processed meats, added sugars, refined oils, refined grains, and other highly processed foods, which are generally costly, you will be able to save a lot of money both in the short-run and long-run.
Nuts and dried fruits are a key part of the Mediterranean diet. These edibles can be taken as components of main courses or snacks. Therefore, you will need to stock up on them considerably.
Final Thoughts
The Mediterranean diet is a healthy diet that is relatively easy to implement at home. This diet includes foods that are readily available in your local grocery stores and online for less. Plus, people who eat on this diet enjoy amazing health benefits, including but not limited to diabetes prevention, reduced risks of Alzheimer’s disease, and a strong, healthy heart. With that said, it’s time to go Mediterranean.