Lenten menu: how to eat properly during fasting - diet

Basic principles and rules

Confinement on these days is considered most important for the Christian faith. But this is not a reason to eat only empty porridge and low-fat soup all the time. From such “delights” the body’s functioning will begin to deteriorate and become disrupted, problems and diseases will appear. You can organize a Lenten menu and write out delicious recipes for the week so that the food is healthy, varied and satisfying.

A church holiday is great for remembering forgotten dishes and finding new ones in various combinations of long-familiar ingredients. But how to adhere to prohibitions correctly so as not to harm yourself?

Nutritionist's comment:

It is important to understand how to eat properly during Lent. All prohibitions must be observed based on age, desire and health. You cannot thoughtlessly refuse food for several weeks, especially when you have diseases of the gastrointestinal tract or cardiovascular system, even in the past.

Most people tend to limit themselves during this period. In every week or week there are days on which, according to the church calendar, you can only eat unprocessed foods. This eating behavior is called dry eating - there are gifts of nature in unlimited quantities. During Lent, such meals fall on every other weekday.

Contraindications

The Lenten diet is prohibited for use by people with the following diseases:

• Anemia;
• Anorexia;
• Intestinal tract disorders;
• Infections;
• Oncological diseases

The diet is also not recommended during the following periods:

• Pregnancy period;
• Breast-feeding;
• Childhood;
• Elderly age;
• Rehabilitation period;

Before starting a diet, it is best to visit a doctor to receive detailed and individual recommendations and advice.

Basic principles

• On Tuesday and every other Tuesday, a variety of dishes are allowed, but they are lenten. The main thing is to do without oils or remove them from the diet as much as possible. Food can be boiled, stewed, steamed or baked.
• On weekends, you are allowed to cook with oil, because they are considered non-standard.
• On holidays, in addition to the usual diet, fish and seafood are allowed.

The first and final weeks are considered the most stringent, with severe restrictions - the first day and the last days of the final week you will have to completely remove food, for another 4 days only greens and vegetables and fruits are allowed to be consumed.

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It should be understood that health status must be taken into account. If the state of the body does not allow complete abstinence, then the severity should be relaxed. To reassure yourself, you are allowed to talk to a spiritual mentor and ask for advice regarding nutrition during Lent.

Excessive fanaticism and passion for restrictions do not lead to anything good except impaired digestion.

Mechanism of action

The basis of the diet is cereals, fruits and vegetables. Due to the high content of nutrients and vitamins, a person can not only lose weight, but even improve his health. These effects will not be long-lasting, but they will increase thoughts about switching to a healthy diet, and strengthen the general mood towards it.

The lean dietary system does not imply fasting. Weight loss is achieved by limiting calorie intake. Therefore, the body begins to convert its own fat reserves into energy. Waste and toxins are eliminated thanks to the fiber contained in fruits and vegetables. Promotes weight loss and the low calorie content of plant-based foods.

A breakdown during a diet is unlikely, because the feeling of hunger practically does not arise due to the nutritional value of the foods. Refusal of unhealthy fatty foods helps normalize cholesterol levels and prevents the development of atherosclerosis.

In addition to all this, there are also useful qualities of the diet: normalization of digestion, acceleration of metabolism, increased activity of lipid metabolism, due to which fat reserves are broken down faster and cellulite disappears. The diet will give those losing weight a feeling of lightness and a good mood. In a short time, a person may well lose a couple of extra pounds. But you need to remember that the weight lost due to the diet returns soon after it ends.

What foods will be in the main diet?

The list of dishes that are allowed to be used is quite wide. This is a long list of vegetables, which necessarily includes everything that is grown in the garden.

They can be prepared in any convenient way - simply boil, put in a slow cooker or grill, stew or bake. Fruits and berries are also allowed to be consumed in any form and in unlimited quantities. They are used to create drinks and fruit drinks, and put them into baked goods and porridges. Usually what appears on the table is what was grown in the home region in greenhouses. Previously, these were dried, soaked and frozen varieties of apples, plums, pears and berries.

What else can you eat during fasting – mushrooms and beans. They produce vegetable protein, which is so lacking in a limited diet. They are included in salads and appetizers, and in main courses. It is worth including products in the menu in any available form, except raw.

Most often porridge is prepared:

• oatmeal;
• buckwheat;
• wheat;
• millet;
• corn;
• barley;
• rice;
• from other cereals.

To make the Lenten menu more varied and tasty, it is allowed to add fried carrots and onions, mushrooms or beans on certain days. To add sweetness in the absence of sugar, you can add raisins, dried apricots, figs and other dried fruits to the porridge during cooking.

A small amount of nuts and seeds in the diet is acceptable. They help satisfy hunger and replenish the need for polyunsaturated fatty acids and minerals. It also contains vitamins F, E, A and B. This makes the diet during fasting not only varied, but also healthy.

For those who find the regime especially difficult, you can purchase soy products. They are easy to find in the dietary departments of any store, and believers are not prohibited from using them.

Our usual tea and coffee are of plant origin, but only coconut, soy or almond milk is added to it. As a supplement, they drink herbal infusions and berry drinks.

They eat muesli and cereal, but they will have to be diluted with water or juice. You can diversify this meal with honey, jam, fruits and dried fruits.

The best diets for weight loss

Based on the ban on eating fasting foods during fasting, you need to choose for yourself exactly that way of eating that will not force the body, because fasting is not a matter of one day and if the restrictions of the body are also accompanied by a negative perception of the food that remains to be eaten, the consequences will only be negative. Therefore, a lean diet for weight loss, the menu of which meets your own needs, will certainly bear fruit both physically and morally.

The vegetable fast diet constantly receives only praise among its followers. Indeed, among the variety of our vegetables, everyone will definitely find those that will suit their taste. In addition, even if a person does not eat vegetables at all, but loves meat, it is always possible to find recipes in which the same eggplants cannot be distinguished from chicken fillet. This is one of the most consumed vegetables in our latitudes, so when starting a Lenten diet, eggplant recipes should be kept on hand.

Vegetables go well with any other type of food; feel free to eat spinach, cabbage, greens and salad along with bread, cereal and fish on days when you can eat it.

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Don’t forget about one more plant product, which is not a vegetable, but is also indispensable in preparing delicious dishes. Mushrooms are an excellent source of protein and therefore an excellent meat substitute. In terms of taste, mushrooms have no equal among foods that can be eaten during fasting. Fresh and salted, pickled and fried mushrooms will definitely help everyone who is fasting to comply with all the canons of the diet and not go crazy from a lack of taste sensations. You don’t have to worry about the menu - just replace meat and fish with mushrooms in your usual dishes. However, remember that the mushroom diet should not last more than 2 weeks, so be sure to combine it with vegetable and cereal dishes.

If the main thing in choosing a diet for a woman is its anti-cellulite effect, then Lent is perfect for observing it. The task of the anti-cellulite diet is to restore the water-salt balance of the body, quickly and efficiently break down carbohydrates, and restore proper blood circulation. With this diet, it is forbidden to eat the same foods as during fasting; it is recommended to focus on fruits and vegetables, as well as cereals and grains. The only discrepancy between fasting and the anti-cellulite diet will be the regularity of food intake, because to completely cleanse the body of toxins and saturate the skin cells with useful substances, you need to eat often, in small portions. The rules of fasting insist on eating in one sitting, and even in the evening.

What products are prohibited?

The first thing you shouldn’t do on days like this is overeating. The volume of dishes should only satisfy hunger within reasonable limits. It is absolutely wrong to fill your stomach.

All fast food and semi-finished products that only need to be heated are prohibited. During the production of such food, a large amount of animal fats and harmful chemicals are used.

Chewing gum and alcoholic beverages are prohibited. This negatively affects health and spiritual cleansing. In addition, during fasting, such behavior can provoke alcohol poisoning.

You can't eat:

• milk and all products based on it;
• fish;
• baking;
• sugar;
• meat-containing products.

There is a restriction on fish, seafood and caviar, fats. Fish dishes are allowed only on Palm Sunday and the Annunciation, caviar - only on Blue Saturday. On weekends, you can use oil for cooking.

Reviews

The effect of fasting for 40 days is stable and noticeable.

Those who purposefully follow a lean diet talk about systematically losing weight by 2-3 kg per week . The overall result is equivalent to 8-15 kg of weight loss and depends on the individual characteristics of the body, errors in nutrition and lifestyle.

Maintaining the achieved results is associated with the correct exit from the diet and further eating behavior.

Ekaterina, Samara

I am fasting, I lost 4 kg in the first week, I will continue to follow the fasting diet. My parameters are 80 kg with a height of 168 cm.

Vasilisa, Moscow

I am fasting and have only lost 1 kg so far, but I feel an extraordinary lightness in my body and a good mood. I recommend everyone to observe Lent, at least during the last Holy Week.

Vera, Belgorod

I started following the fast following the example of my friend. We select the menu together, monitor nutrition and control each other. The result pleased me - 2.5 kg in 10 days!

Diet for a week, taking into account the meaning of days

One of the features of this time of year is the opportunity to create a menu for the week in advance. It will be easier to stick to it; you won’t have to think every day about what to put on the table.

Lenten food includes recipes from different countries, but most often it is Russian cuisine. Soups, borscht, pickles, cabbage soup and main courses - vegetable and mushroom. These are salads, appetizers, casseroles and cereals. Gifts of nature, kvass, compotes and jelly are great as snacks.

The first week is the strictest - you can’t eat food on Monday, in the second week only drinks, jelly and bread are allowed. On weekends, it is allowed to add butter, but not butter, and boiled dishes.

Nutritionist's comment:

For people who have decided to fast for the first time, there is no need to adhere to an overly strict diet. Excessive stress can negatively affect your health and cause problems with the gastrointestinal tract and nervous system. Lack of food can trigger the development of diseases and exacerbation of chronic diseases. It is better to keep the fast under the supervision of a doctor and after all the necessary tests have been passed. Any changes must be tracked. In addition, this time should become a test of the spirit, not the body.

From the second week, eating becomes easier:

Meals during fasting by day can be scheduled in a similar way for all 40 days. There is an unlimited amount of tea, herbal and berry infusions to choose from daily.

Who should not fast

First of all, the fasting diet for every day is suitable only for absolutely healthy people. If a person is on a constant diet for medical reasons (for various chronic diseases), a lean diet is strictly contraindicated for him. If a nutritionist advises his client to adhere to a diet and dietary restrictions in order to lose weight, it is also impossible to blindly switch from such a diet to fasting. Just as it is impossible to independently exclude all foods that are included in the diet during a diet, but violate the requirements of fasting - in this way a person risks very quickly depleting his body and developing chronic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. In any case, whether a person takes such a step at the call of the soul or at the request of the body, it is imperative to remember about health and preserve it.

Special evenings and holidays

The first week is strict - here you need to limit prohibited foods as much as possible and eat a minimum of food. The last one before Easter will be just as strict.

The sixth Sunday is called Palm Sunday. You can eat fish, food with butter, even a small amount of Cahors is acceptable. On the Friday before the holiday, you are allowed to eat only bread and water.

For special days, a salad of avocado and orange is prepared - slices of orange fruit, peeled and filmed, are divided into small parts. Then the green ingredient is prepared: the peel is removed, the fruit is cut into thin lines. Parts of sweet pepper are also added there, and the whole thing is seasoned with lemon juice and salt.

Nutritionist's comment:

Lent contains simple nutritional rules for those who do not want to adhere to a strict diet. It is enough to exclude animal fats and everything of animal origin, and, if possible, remove butter and dairy products. If illnesses appear or health deteriorates, then you need to stop observing the prohibitions and return to your usual lifestyle or ease the restrictions.

Lenten beet cutlets

Beetroot lovers can make cutlets from this healthy and tasty vegetable. Don't forget that beets are an ideal source of fiber; they cleanse our intestines and remove harmful toxins.

• 3 medium beets. We wash it and let it cook until done. Peel the skin and grate it on a medium grater. Here is ready-made vegetarian minced meat! Remember that 100 grams of this minced meat contains only 47 calories!
• 100 grams of semolina.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Any greens. You can add dill and parsley.

Add all the ingredients to the minced beetroot and mix thoroughly. Since we are following a diet or proper nutrition, we will cook this dish in the oven. Thanks to semolina, you can be sure that the cutlets will not fall apart. Place them on a baking sheet (don't forget the parchment) and put them in the oven for 10 minutes. Temperature 180−200 degrees. You can also use a double boiler if desired.

Meals during Holy Week (final week)

This period is not just a time for food restrictions. This is the moment when it is worth reflecting on your own behavior. It is important to give up not only certain foods, but also bad habits and thoughts. The goal is not just to prepare lean dietary dishes for weight loss, but to cleanse yourself of junk food and lifestyle.

These days you need to eat bread, vegetables and mushrooms in any form. The bulk of the food is raw, unprocessed and oil-free. Drinks include tea, compote and cold infusions.

It is also important to remember that at the beginning of this week it is not prohibited to eat only one meal in the evenings. The second half is relaxed - on Thursday it is allowed to eat hot food with a small amount of vegetable oil.

The most difficult is Friday, the most strict and difficult mentally and physically. You need to completely abstain from food, you can only drink water. On Saturday they eat hot food, but in small quantities.

Lenten PP borscht

So, let's see how to properly prepare borscht for Lent, while making it low-calorie and harmless to your figure. We will cook borscht without adding potatoes, but we will add beans and mushrooms!

• 1 beet and 1 carrot. Wash, peel the vegetables and grate them on a medium grater.
• 2 onions. Finely chop.
• 1 can of already boiled beans. On average you will need about 200 grams.
• ¼ cabbage. Let's chop.
• 200 grams of mushrooms. Wash, peel and cut.
• Spices and seasonings. We use any according to our taste.
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. It is important to add the oil at the end, when the soup is ready! This way the beneficial substances contained in the oil will not be destroyed.

Take a pan and pour 2.5 liters of water. We put it on fire. When the water boils, add onions, carrots and beets. Reduce heat and cook for 20 minutes. This will be our dietary frying. Then add cabbage and mushrooms. Salt and pepper. Cook for another 10 minutes. At the very end, add the beans. Leave it on the fire for a couple of minutes, then turn it off. Add vegetable oil and any herbs to the prepared soup. Such borscht can be safely included in the menu in the post.

How to leave a post

It is necessary to adhere to certain rules during the exit so that sudden weight gain does not occur. Those for whom it is important to save the results need to:

• start introducing foods gradually: first dairy dishes and eggs, then fish and poultry, and meat last;
• introduce meat also in parts - first, fresh veal and meat of young animals;
• in addition to food, it is important to continue to maintain a water balance - at least 2 liters;
• You definitely need to provide yourself with physical activity to stay in good shape;
• You need to sleep at least 8 hours, preferably from 23 to 7 am.

How much can you lose?

The more restrictions and refusals to indulge yourself in your favorite fast food and meat delicacies, the greater the result you will get. How much you can lose on a diet will depend as much as possible on the duration, strict adherence to the rules and responsibility to yourself. A complete rejection of fatty foods will speed up the process, and the body will begin to actively lose weight. Roughly given figures range from a kilogram to ten.