The last decade was filled with different food trends and wonder-promising diets. We’ve witnessed that many of them were just marketing tricks or unhealthy and inefficient. Now is the ideal time to return to all-natural food if we care about our health. As Michael Palin stated in the Monty Python's Flying Circus: ‘All you should want from your food is that it doesn’t harm you.’ Organic food won’t harm you, but bring you a lot of benefits. With more nutrients than processed and chemically treated food, it can prolong your life and prevent diseases. Don’t expect miracle weight loss, though. The effects may come slower, but they’ll come and stay. 

Nature’s Gifts

With organic food, nature brought us more nutrients. On average, organic food contains significantly higher concentration of antioxidants than conventionally grown food. It is food that is grown according to certain standards and processed with specific methods. All of this makes organic food the perfect choice for someone who wants to improve their health and lose weight. Making healthy diet choices means that you will avoid chemicals. Some studies find that pesticides can influence weight gain, while others claim that the amount is so small that it doesn’t have any impact. We don’t know about you, but we wouldn’t like to take this risk. 

It’s not all About the Greens…

 … there is a little something about meat, too. Often there are misconceptions that organic food is linked only with fruits and vegetables. You don’t have to be a vegetarian to make healthy food choices. When eating meat, you should check the way the animal was grown and fed. If we compared organically raised chickens and chickens made to fulfill competitive market standards, we would notice that the former have less fat, leaner meat and are thinner and healthier. Conventionally grown chickens are being fed foodstuff with the purpose of growing as large as possible and it results in too much fat. It is the same with other animals too.

Eat Your (Organic) Veggies and Fruits

The genetically engineered approach to the production of fruits and vegetables results in more pesticides in the products. The food grown using organic methods contains more vitamins and minerals, and it is healthier. Higher levels of nutrients provide your body with more energy and better functionality, which further influences easier fat burning, digestion and easier removal of excess fat deposits. Eating healthy naturally-grown food may not help you lose weight directly, but indirectly it has a high impact on your organism’s willingness to process food into energy, and use that energy to lose weight. We would say it is worthwhile, wouldn’t you?

Organic Meals

You can opt for an exclusively raw food diet, which is a whole different way of preparing your food. Your meals would be based on such dishes as smoked fish, raw and dried fruit or vegetables, raw soups, smoothies, shakes, etc. You can find various recipes, including protein shake recipes, which will make a great addition to your diet. One more way to go is paleo diet, based on eating real unprocessed foods. You can also eat the way you’ve always eaten, with the change of eating organic instead of conventionally produced food. In the long-term, this will also have positive effects. When making organic meals the possibilities for delicious results are endless. Still, we’ll give you one treat to make your taste buds explode.

Organic black beans

Ingredients:

• 1 cup black organic beans
• 1/2 cup of white organic beans
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tsp olive oil
• ½ tsp organic cumin
• 1 tsp freshly chopped chili
• 1 tsp organic coriander seeds
• 1 finely diced capsicum
• 400g organic thinned tomatoes
• ½  tsp sea salt

Preparation:

Presoak the beans overnight. Add fresh water (5-6 cups) in the sauce pan and pour the beans. Simmer over gentle heat and stir occasionally. In separate saucepan fry the garlic. After 1 hour, mix in the seasonings and add the mixture to the beans. In the end, add the tomatoes and simmer for about 30 minutes more.

It is possible to enjoy food, be healthy and reach optimal weight. All it takes is some consideration regarding the way the food comes to your table and what you do with it later. Bon appétit!

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This post has been contributed by Peter Minkoff

Full Plate Less Weight takes you on a step by step, guided program to help you lose weight without the use of harsh dieting.

Authored by Ray Kelly who has 15 years experience in the fitness industry, he has helped athletes around the world and has trained two of the winners on The Biggest Loser.    

There are some really tasty and healthy recipes in this book which are quite easy and simple to make, this is important to me, as I’m very lazy in the kitchen!

The book is in 4 parts - Thinking like a Winner, Eating like a Winner, Training like a Winner and Winning Tips.

It starts off with training your brain to think differently and setting realistic goals, there is an array of health information in Part One, even if you aren’t overweight, if you’re not eating right and having trouble controlling your stress levels, you’re health is going to suffer, such as PCOS and high blood pressure.   Ray helps to get you in the right frame of mind.

Part Two teaches you all about calories, which I really didn’t know anything about before and informs you all about carbs, proteins, fats and what different food labels mean. I found this really interesting as there seems to be alot of confusion in the fitness industry over carbs and fats and sometimes you're left wondering about what you should be eating, Ray explains all of this in an easy to understand way.  Emotional eating is also explained, which is something a lot of us do.   Meal plans are included and some beautiful recipes which don’t need a lot of weird ingredients, just healthy ingredients you can find anywhere.
I love all of the recipes, particularly the protein boost eggs and cucumber salad with pear and citrus dressing.   

Part three is all about exercise including strength, resistance, cardio.   It eases you into it,  no need to feel like you’e trying to run a marathon and suits all levels of fitness.

Part 4 helps you put it all together, including diaries and meal planners.   

I think this is a great motivational book if you’re trying to lose weight or get your health back on track in a sensible, safe and tasty manner.  

You can click on this link to purchase Full Plate Less Weight