When embarking on a fitness plan, whether it be for a particular activity or increasing muscle, such as body building, it is vital to address your diet. Although many sports diet programs look at and give advice about particular foods like high protein foods, it is important to eat healthily.
It is important even for those dieting, on a weight loss program. Most diets for sports are not always healthy ones. A particularly important area is fat intake. The following provides tips and advice on which foods to buy and how to cook them in the best way to reduce fat intake:
Foods to buy:
Find out if there are alternatives to the food you normally buy by checking the labels and choosing low saturated fat ones.
If you are buying poultry such as chicken or turkey, buy it without the skin on.
Fish or vegetarian versions of meals will have a lower fat content.
Choose low fat varieties of dairy foods, like semi-skimmed milk and lower fat yoghurts.
If you are buying a pie, buy one with only one crust at the top.
Check your cut of meat and the amount of visible fat. Look out for lower fat alternatives of meat such as lean mince meat. Check the visible amount of fat on the meat.
Preparation in the Kitchen:
Saturated oils are bad, so use unsaturated oils as an alternative. Sunflower, rapeseed and olive oil are popular types. These are a good alternative to lard, butter and ghee.
Grill your meat as an alternative to frying it. Grilling encourages all the fat from the meat to run away. Remove any fat from the meat to lower the fat content.
Using a non-stick pan can allow you to avoid using fat or oil altogether.
When adding spreads to food such as mashed potato use a low fat spread.
If you are on a fitness program then healthier alternatives can be substituted. Adding all these small bits of advice together can amount to large differences in your diet which can significantly lower your fat intake. Just making small regular changes can soon add up to large improvements.
