If you want to follow a healthy diet, the easiest thing is to follow the Mediterranean Diet, because it is ours, that of the grandmothers but updated. By following it, it will be easy for you to find the ingredients, they will also be cheaper because you can find them in any market, you do not have to go to specialized stores or look for them online.
In addition, surely you already do a good part of what we are going to propose, which is only to reconnect with those habits that little by little have been parked and that make your diet today not absolutely Mediterranean. At the end of the article you have a downloadable to cross out each day.
These are the 21 daily habits that we are going to propose that you incorporate:
1. in the market and not in the supermarket
In this way you will eat real food, that is, fresh food (fruit, vegetables, fish, legumes …) that then have to be cooked. Because yes, in the Mediterranean Diet it is a diet in which you have to cook (it can be as easy as putting vegetables and fish on the grill, eh, no mess). The important thing is to avoid prepared meals, fast food …
2. Have salad at a main meal
It does not have to be a single dish, it can be a first course. You can even put it in lunch and dinner as a garnish. In this way, you make sure you eat the daily ration of raw vegetables recommended by the Mediterranean Diet. You can even do as it was done at grandmother's house, put a large bowl of assorted salad in the center of the table for each guest to serve.
3. Take a single-dish legume
Ideally, you should get to doing it between 2 and 4 times a week, since legumes are very important as a source of low-fat protein in the Mediterranean Diet. In addition, by taking them as a main dish, you reduce the amount of meat you consume, another important aspect in this diet. Do you need ideas to eat more?
4. Water as a regular drink
The ideal is to drink about 8 glasses of water or unsweetened infusions daily. Although the Mediterranean Diet admits a moderate consumption of wine -one glass a day-, the truth is that the nutritionists' recommendations are for an even more occasional consumption, being almost 0. If you usually drink a lot of sugary drinks (juices, soft drinks …) or alcoholic, reduce the portion to achieve a consumption as low as possible.
5. For dessert, fruit
Taking fruit for dessert in the two main meals you already make sure you consume two of the 3 daily servings of fruit that are recommended and thus comply with the 5 a day. The other piece of fruit can be eaten for breakfast or for mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks.
6. Add some goat or sheep milk
The usual thing is to take cow's milk, but it is interesting to do it also from goat or sheep, since although they are similar, they provide different nutrients. For example, sheep's milk is the richest in calcium. The recommendation of the Mediterranean Diet is to take dairy in the form of yogurt (also kefir) or cheese rather than milk.
7. Add a handful of nuts to your daily menu (if you don't have any)
Ideally, take a handful of about 20 grams of nuts about 3-4 times a week, even every day. Nuts can be safely included in a weight loss diet based on the Mediterranean Diet. In addition, the Predimed Study found that people who ate nuts every day had a 30% lower risk of heart attack or stroke because their fats are cardioprotective.
8. Use olive oil for everything
It is the fat par excellence of the Mediterranean Diet, with permission from nuts and fish. It is recommended both for cooking and for dressing or even in home baking.
9. That in your daily menu there is a dish that has sofrito
This combination of oil, onion, garlic and tomato is very rich in polyphenols, natural antioxidants that protect the heart according to a study by the University of Barcelona published in the journal Food Chemistry. In addition, the fact of making a sauce means that we are doing home cooking, which is one of the values of the Mediterranean Diet. But doing so does not have to make us slaves in the kitchen, with the batch cooking system we can cook one day for the whole week.
10. Prepare a vegetable dish with potato
The Mediterranean Diet recommends taking about three weekly servings of potato. The ideal is to do it in such common preparations as vegetables with potatoes (green beans, broccoli, spinach …) or in vegetable stews, soups such as minestrone or also stews and fish stews.
11. One more serving of fish
The idea is that fish displace meat, since it is, together with legumes and eggs, the most recommended protein in the Mediterranean Diet. On what fish to consume, better small and from the Mediterranean. Not only is it cheaper, it is also low in mercury.
12. Do one more sporting activity
If you walk, walk more or take the bike or, if you can, go train at the gym. The ideal is to lead a life as active as possible, since the current Mediterranean Diet considers the fight against sedentary lifestyle as important as eating a healthy diet and incorporates it into its precepts. If you don't like doing sports or it bores you, maybe you haven't found the sports activity that best suits you and our test can help you.
13. Eat in company
At least one of the main meals of the day, do it in company, sitting at the table, sharing experiences and food. As in the previous case, the Mediterranean Diet is not just a way of eating, it is a way of life and family and friends play a central role in it. In fact, the usual thing in our country is that everything is celebrated around a table …
14. Breathe outdoors
Another aspect of the Mediterranean Diet that has nothing to do with food but which scholars greatly value is the natural space in which life traditionally developed, especially on the seashore or in the countryside. Today this has changed and life has been concentrated in large cities such as Valencia, Barcelona, Marseille, Naples or Athens. But even so, if your city has a promenade or a park with lush trees, try to visit it frequently and, if you can, take weekend getaways to nature.
15. Go reducing the amounts of your rations
The Mediterranean Diet is characterized by being a frugal diet, so the ideal is that you get used to eating a little less every day. This is one of the keys to a healthy weight. If you notice, one of the big differences between the US, one of the countries with the highest obesity rate; and Japan, where they have one of the lowest, is the size of their servings. In the US they are so big that many times they already assume that people will take the leftovers home. On the other hand, in Japan, everything is eaten in small bowls and plates, smaller than ours for dessert. Thus, they eat very varied but in mini portions.
16. Don't repeat a recipe in 15 days
Another characteristic of the Mediterranean Diet is that it is a varied diet. Therefore, changing recipes often, not repeating and ensuring that all dishes have a lot of color, is essential and helps the diet provide all the necessary nutrients.
17. Every day, read a label of the foods that you usually make
Doing so will help you be more aware of the foods that end up in your shopping cart and which are healthy processed and which are ultra-processed very inconvenient.
18. Every day, one teaspoon less sugar
The goal is to eat without adding sugar to your food, to not need it. The WHO recommends that the added sugar - the one you put in the coffee with milk but, above all, the one in soft drinks or prepared dishes, from tomato sauces to industrial pastries - should not exceed 25 g per day (5% of the total calories we eat per day).
19. Eat seasonal foods
And even better if they are seasonal and kilometer 0, because they are more nutritious foods - since they have not had to be in cameras or travel thousands of kilometers being collected before being at their optimum point - but also because they are cheaper and help to maintain Mediterranean agriculture and livestock. If you have any doubts, CLARA's seasonal food calendars will suit you perfectly.
20. Steam vegetables
This type of cooking, which was not so common before, is the one that is most recommended in the current Mediterranean Diet, because studies show that it better preserves the nutrients in food. For example, when vegetables are boiled, part of their vitamins and minerals pass into the water and we should drink this cooking broth in addition to eating the cooked vegetables, so that we can take all the nutrients. With steam, this does not happen.
21. Change a serving of refined cereals for whole grains
Be careful, it is not about increasing the ration, it is just replacing it. If you eat wholemeal bread, you cannot have as much as you want, it is to take the same amount as white. What happens is that the whole grain provides you with nutrients that are lost when refining the cereal.
If after everything we have told you, you are convinced to do this challenge and follow a real Mediterranean Diet, here is the download to follow the challenge. You will see how easy!
DOWNLOAD THE 21 DAYS MEDITERRANEAN DIET CHALLENGE
