Balanced diet to lose weight over 50

So what exactly is a balanced diet? Well, dictionary.com’s definition is “a diet consisting of the proper quantities and portions of food needed to maintain health or growth.” It sounds like a great way to eat. Yet, how do we know, what is the right balance for us?

A sedentary 50-year-old man is going to need a different balance of food and nutrients than a 20-year-old athlete.

To make it easy we need to break it down as simply as possible still allowing as much room for personal taste and preferences as we can.

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As an older guy when we want to lose weight usually it’s not just because we want to look better but we want to feel and be healthier too. There are a lot of health benefits of eating fruit and vegetables. For example, potassium it’s found in foods like potatoes, spinach, broccoli and artichokes.

Potassium can help to maintain healthy blood pressure.

Antioxidants are also found in fruit and vegetables. Diets high in antioxidants may reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers.

Fibre from fruits and vegetables helps to reduce blood cholesterol levels, may lower the risk of heart disease and is a key to losing weight by helping us feel full longer with fewer calories.

To illustrate here is a picture of a small apple with about 80 calories. Beside it is 2 small Halloween candies totalling 100 calories. On the other side is 100 calories of chips. The Apple has more food volume and will digest slower helping us feel full longer.

For a very basic balanced diet plan, you should aim to have half of your meals being fruits and vegetables. Try a wide variety of types and if you think you just don't like the taste of vegetables give it a chance our tastebuds will adapt over time.

Remember the first time we had a sip of coffee or beer how awful we thought that tasted? Look how much we like coffee and beer now!

Next, we are going to talk about whole grains. As a guy who first started to learn about nutrition when the paleo diet was all the rage this is something, I used to avoid. But I now see where it has a place in our diet.

Whole grains are super nutritious high in B vitamins including niacin, thiamine and folate. Lots of minerals like zinc, iron, and magnesium.

They have been shown to lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. The main reason it helps with weight loss is the same as with fruits and veggies they have a high fibre content.

Now there are a couple of caveats here. One just because it says whole grain on the box doesn't mean it’s a good choice as the other ingredients may not be the healthiest.
For example, added sugar. What we are talking about here minimally processed grains like oatmeal, quinoa, and wild rice.

The other thing is some people are gluten sensitive and if this is the case you will need to limit yourself to gluten-free whole grains like rice, oats and buckwheat.

So how many whole grains should you eat every day? They should take up about 25% of your plate or I often use 2 cupped handfuls for a man as a reference.

If you’re not used to eating a lot of fibre you might want to add these foods in slowly to give your body some time to adjust to the change.

Protein reduces hunger hormones which improves satiety causing us to eat less. Protein also protects us from muscle loss while losing weight and as we get older muscle wasting becomes an even greater concern. The amount of protein you need will depend primarily on how active you are and as we age our ability to absorb protein diminishes. So my typical recommendation is to have at least one palm-sized portion at every meal this piece should be the same thickness as your palm as well.

Again minimally processed foods are always better. This includes more than meat and fish, beans, nuts and seeds are also on this list. As well as other vegan sources of protein.

That breaks down a balanced diet into the most basic and simplest form possible. Although there are a few principles that work well with this style of eating. The first one is to eat slower and enjoy the taste of your food. We haven’t talked about seasonings, but use them as they greatly add to this enjoyment. Then stop when you start to feel satisfied, not full. Feeling full means you ate too much.

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