Can a balanced diet help you lose weight?

The answer is - it cannot make you "lose weight", but it is definitely the least painful and least prone to rebound among all healthy weight loss methods.

Opinions on this issue around me are completely polarized. Some people say that they did not diet or go to the gym, so they changed their previous habit of eating takeout and drinking milk tea as water. They ate grains, vegetables, and high-quality protein with three meals. They lost 12 pounds in three months, and now they have not regained it for more than half a year.； Some people were so aggrieved that they followed the dietitian's recipe, which included whole grains, vegetables, and chicken breast. However, after two months of eating, the number on the scale did not change at all, and instead they gained 3 pounds.

In fact, the core reason why there is such a big deviation is that many people have gone astray in their understanding of "balanced diet". Many people think that as long as the types of ingredients are healthy enough and the combination is balanced enough, they can lose weight by eating as much as they want. I met a little girl a while ago who ate an avocado oatmeal bowl for breakfast and a handful of plain rice in the afternoon. With almonds, she had boiled vegetables and fried salmon for dinner. She couldn't go wrong with the ingredients, and she had enough nutrients. But she didn't calculate that the calories of half an avocado plus 20 grams of almonds were almost as much as someone else's bowl of clear soup noodles. The total calories were higher than what was consumed, and she couldn't lose weight no matter how balanced she was.

I accompanied a friend who had metabolic problems to register at the nutrition department. The plan given by the doctor was actually very down-to-earth and did not allow him to stop eating at all. It was to replace one-third of the polished rice and white noodles he had eaten with brown rice and corn and other whole grains, and replace the braised pork ribs in the evening with steamed or stewed ones with less oil. He also added a fistful of green leafy vegetables every day. He was even allowed to eat hot pot twice a week and drink milk tea once a week, as long as the total calories were controlled within the gap of about 300 calories higher than his basal metabolism. He ate this way and didn't do any exercise. He lost 6 pounds in the first month. Now his weight has been stable for more than half a year. The hair loss and aunt's delay caused by the previous diet have been alleviated a lot.

Of course, there are many people who are looking to lose weight quickly. They think that losing four or five pounds in a month is too inefficient. It is not as fast as cutting off carbs and taking diet pills. However, I have seen too many people who rely on extreme methods to lose weight quickly. Either their faces are sallow and they can't even climb three floors and they are out of breath, or they rebound after just two mouthfuls of normal rice, and they are even heavier than before losing weight. After all, you can't live without eating carbohydrates and normal meals for the rest of your life, right?

To use an inappropriate analogy, a balanced diet is like long-term basic maintenance for the body. It is not a special medicine that will be effective immediately after taking it. But as long as you know your caloric gap accurately, you can slowly lose weight without starving yourself. The most important thing is that after you lose weight, you don’t have to work hard to maintain it, and you won’t rebound by eating normally. Isn’t this much more cost-effective than the vicious cycle of losing weight and losing weight?