Proper nutrition for weight loss (for a month) - Plan, Menu and Examples

The popular practice of proper nutrition for weight loss for a month promises adherents effective weight loss and solving health problems.

Positive changes occur thanks to a correctly compiled healthy nutrition menu for the month, which is balanced and varied.

Reviews from men and women confirm that weight loss does not occur as quickly as with express diets, but the results are permanent.

Nutrition plan for weight loss for a month

Proper nutrition is fundamentally different from diets in that it is completely balanced and satisfies a person’s need for nutrients and biologically active compounds.

Weight loss will occur more slowly than with express diets, but it will be fat that will be “burned”, not water.

Thanks to its gentle effect on the body, proper nutrition can be continued indefinitely and made into normal eating behavior.

The benefits of this are obvious: improved health, increased quality of life, a feeling of lightness in the body and a surge of vital energy. This method is acceptable even for breastfeeding women who have gained excess weight after giving birth.

In order for your idea of ​​switching to proper nutrition to be successfully implemented, you need to build the right strategy for the month ahead. It's best to do this in stages.

First stage. Determine the basic rules of nutrition.

The correct diet for a month is not a set of dogmas that are equal for all people. First of all, it is a healthy diet that is optimally suited for a particular organism.

Each of us has our own constitutional characteristics, chronic diseases, bad habits, level of physical activity, and established lifestyle. Therefore, a proper nutrition program for losing weight for a month should be adapted to your specific body:

Number of meals and time for each meal.

It is recommended to adhere to a five-time regimen with a break of 2-3 hours. You need to have breakfast an hour after waking up, and dinner no later than two hours before going to bed.

Calorie content of the daily diet.

If your goal is weight loss, then your calorie intake should be at 10-15%

less than their expenditure on physiological processes and activity. In this case, the energy deficit will be replenished by consuming reserve fat in the human body.

Calculate daily calorie needs DCI

(AMR) can be done using the most modern
Harris-Benedict
:

For women:

DCI = (weight (kg) × 10 + height (cm) × 6.25 – age (years) × 5 – 161) × Activity coefficient.

For men:

DCI = (weight (kg) × 10 + height (cm) × 6.25 – age (years) × 5 + 5) × Activity coefficient.

You can take the activity coefficient for calculation from the list:

• 1.2 - no or minimal physical activity;
• 1.38 – moderate training 3 times a week;
• 1.46 – moderate training 5 times a week;
• 1.55 – intensive training 5 times a week;
• 1.64 – training every day;
• 1.73 - intense training every day or 2 times a day;
• 1.9 – daily physical activity + physical work.

Amount of fluid per day.

It is generally accepted that the body needs 30-40 ml of water per 1 kg of weight. Drink only clean, non-carbonated water. Juices, soups, tea and coffee are considered food.

It is recommended to drink the first portion of water (250 ml or more according to personal experience) on an empty stomach immediately after waking up. The remaining amount should be evenly distributed throughout waking hours. Drink water separately from meals: half an hour before and no earlier than an hour after.

During active sports and hot weather, the amount of water you drink may increase slightly.

Poll: Do you have any bad eating habits?

Distribution of caloric content of dishes by meals.

This item requires adaptation to your lifestyle. The average person is most active in the first half of the day, so he should consume the bulk of his calories at this time of day.

After noon, activity decreases, and the calorie content of food decreases accordingly.

Approximately the daily calorie intake is distributed as follows: 25% is consumed for breakfast, 15% for lunch, 35% for lunch, 10% for afternoon snack and 15% for the last meal.

Make a proper nutrition plan for weight loss for a month in accordance with these rules, and this is guaranteed to bring you the desired result in the form of normalizing your weight and improving your body’s condition.

Poll: How much weight do you want to lose?

Action plan

1. You know exactly what your children and husband like. Think about what foods they will definitely eat in your absence.

2. Distribute meals by day, decide whether it will be only dinners, or lunches and dinners. The result is a menu for the week. It can be used in the future.

3. Make a list and get shopping! By the way, if you go to the market at closing time, you will buy everything 20% ​​cheaper. if you are shopping at the supermarket, a list will help you save money; don’t buy anything unnecessary, you will know for sure that all the products will be used, and this is another 10% saving.

4. Plan time to prepare the menu. Preparing food for 5-6 days will take 4-5 hours with breaks to watch your favorite shows.

5. Select from the menu the dishes that take the longest to prepare - these are soups (broths take time), meat in the oven…. Start cooking with these dishes; they can also become preparations for other dishes from the menu.

6. If you are cooking for men, then prepare more meat; from one piece of meat you can make several dishes at once: stew with vegetables, pancakes with meat, a la pilaf, meat for sandwiches….

7. To save time, prepare all the vegetables at once, cut the onions, potatoes, and eggplants for all dishes.

8. Place prepared meals or semi-finished products (for example, broths, soups for freezing, vegetable stews) in bags and containers.

9. Don’t forget to sign the packages with ready-made food, or even better, entrust this to your children and husband, then they will know exactly what they put where and won’t be able to say that we forgot, didn’t find it, didn’t know where the food was.

Healthy diet for a month

The main thing in proper nutrition is a balanced menu. We can talk at length about the principles of creating a daily menu, but it’s easier to imagine it in the form of a consumer plate.

It is recommended to divide the plate into three equal parts. Two thirds should be filled with “correct” carbohydrates, and the remaining segment should be equally divided between fats and proteins.

Thus, the ratio of nutrients in the diet should be formed according to the proportion B:F:U = 1:1:4

. Of course, when buying groceries for the month, you should be careful when choosing the sources of each nutrient.

Carbohydrates

The most extensive group and the basis of a diet based on proper nutrition is carbohydrates. They provide us with energy throughout the day and regulate digestion.

Vegetables, greens

They are low in calories, high in fiber, vitamins, trace elements and minerals. Starchy vegetables should be limited in the amount of consumption, while green leafy vegetables, on the contrary, can be eaten almost without limitation.

When composing dishes from vegetables, it is necessary to take into account their calorie content.
Table of energy value of products

Fruits and berries

These sources of carbohydrates are given by nature as a dessert because they contain natural sugars - fructose and glucose. They can be used as a snack and are convenient to take with you.

Even high-calorie bananas and grapes are not recommended to be completely excluded from the diet, since they, like all other fruits and berries, supply the body with valuable vitamins, micro and macroelements and other biologically valuable compounds.
Table of energy value of fruits

During winter, when most seasonal fruits are not available, dried fruits can be used as a sweet dessert.

In addition to the high fructose content, they contain concentrated amounts of fiber, minerals and trace elements.

However, dried fruits have a high calorie content, so they should be included in the menu in doses.
Table of energy value of dried fruits

Cereals

Contains slow carbohydrates that provide long-lasting energy.
In addition, they contain B vitamins, which are not destroyed even during heat treatment. All cereals are quite high in calories, so it is necessary to strictly adhere to the portion size in order not to exceed the calorie content of food intake. Table of energy value of cereals

Bread and pasta

These products can be included in the diet with proper nutrition only if they are made from whole grain flour.

Only it contains bran, which is valuable for digestion, which is pure fiber. Whole grain bread and pasta are slow carbohydrates that are characterized by a low rate of breakdown and long-term saturation of the body.

Squirrels

Proper nutrition for women and men must include proteins. These nutrients are valuable building materials for the cells of our body. Without them, the full functioning of organs and systems is impossible.

Nutritionists advise calculating protein intake as follows: per 1 kg of body weight you need to consume 0.8-1 g of protein. Thus, for an average person weighing 70 kg, 70 g of protein will be sufficient.

Various products of animal and plant origin serve as sources of protein:
Table of energy value of meat products

Energy table for legumes

Chicken and quail eggs are also a valuable source of protein. Nutritionists impose restrictions on the consumption of yolk, and hypoallergenic protein can be eaten more often and more.

Dairy

They combine protein and valuable calcium. A deficiency of both substances can lead to serious illness. Therefore, dairy products must be included in the daily diet as part of the primary diet.

At the same time, nutritionists recommend giving preference to fermented milk products with a normal level of fat content (2,5 – 3,2%

).
They are better absorbed and saturate the body with proteins and calcium. Energy table for dairy products

Fats

This is a part of the diet that cannot be completely eliminated, but must be strictly controlled. A complete absence of fat can lead to serious disruptions in normal physiology.

Fats should be chosen of high quality: exclude solid animal fats and give preference to high-quality vegetable oil. Various nuts will be an excellent alternative to liquid dressings for salads and dishes.

Be aware of the very high calorie content of fat-containing foods and keep their consumption to a minimum.
Energy value of fatty foods

Energy value of nuts

Knowing the calorie content of foods and the rules for forming meals, you can easily organize a month of proper nutrition that will contribute to weight loss. The results of this change in eating behavior are a weight loss of 5-6 kg per month.

In 2-3 months you can easily lose 10 kg.

It is this weight loss regimen that nutritionists consider the safest. Losing weight by 1 -1.5 kg per week or 200 g per day is physiologically acceptable and does not cause significant damage to human health.

Lifehack, without which you can’t go anywhere

Family members - they still strive to remain hungry, despite your care. They will later tell you that they didn’t find any food, so they had to eat instant noodles. Don't give them any chance!!! Let them SIGN THE PACKAGES THEMSELVES AND PLACE THEM IN THE FREEZER. Somewhat, but still a guarantee.

All that’s left is to sign the packages and put them in the refrigerator

Proper nutrition program for weight loss for a month

A proper nutrition diet for a month begins with clearly indicating the hours of food intake. You should start from the time of awakening.

1. Wake-up time: lark - 06:00; owl - 09:00.
2. Breakfast: lark - 07:00; owl - 10:00.
3. Light lunch: lark - 10:00; owl - 13:00.
4. Lunch: lark - 13:00; owl - 15:00.
5. Afternoon snack: lark - 16:00; owl - 17:00.
6. Dinner: lark - 19:00; owl - 20:00.
7. Bedtime: lark - 22:00; owl - 00:00.

The weekly menu must be prepared in advance and go to the grocery store with a ready list. This will help you avoid spontaneous unnecessary purchases of products that do not correspond to proper nutrition.

A healthy diet for the month is compiled taking into account the characteristics of each meal:

Breakfast is an obligatory meal that should take place even in the absence of a strong feeling of hunger. As a rule, when establishing proper nutrition, the feeling of hunger in the morning will gradually appear. Breakfast should be nutritious and balanced. It should contain about 50% of the daily carbohydrate intake, 30% protein and 20% fat.

Lunch and afternoon tea are snacks rather than main meals. They help you “survive” until lunch or dinner. This can be a fruit, a small tray of berries, fresh or stewed vegetables, nuts or dried fruits in a portion of no more than 30 g.

Lunch should be hearty, consisting of a balanced combination of protein and vegetables. Be mindful of your portion size and don't overeat.

dinner consist mostly of easily digestible protein products. The body does not need carbohydrates at the end of the day, but proteins are necessary for the regeneration of cells and tissues.

Be sure to take into account the caloric content of foods and do not go beyond the daily requirement.

Develop a master plan!

It would seem that there should be a plan from the very beginning, shouldn’t it? No, not at all necessary. When you have all the reconnaissance in front of you, it’s easier to think. My task is to make different foods from the same products so that there are more options. Different spices and seasonings will help me.

About the shank, I know from the very beginning that after baking it will go into a saucepan and cook there in a spicy broth until it begins to fall apart into pieces on its own. This means you need to take out the spices: a cinnamon stick, 6-8 cardamom boxes, 2 star anise. Well, the onion is whole. So, I take the shank out of the oven, put it in a large saucepan, add cold water, bring it to a boil, without removing any foam. I add all the spices and the onion, the rest a little later. Fire to minimum - let it gurgle, this will take about three and a half hours, then you need to add spicy vegetables. That is, we will assume that shank = almost pho soup. Leg of lamb. Part of it, of course, won’t make it to the freezer, because no one canceled today’s dinner. But this is a small part, I will cool the rest, remove the pulp from the bone, and give all the veins and cartilage to cats and dogs.

Part of the leg of lamb is for dinner, the rest is in the freezer

I will divide the pulp into 3 parts:

— lamb with eggplant and garlic; - lamb a la pilaf; - lamb with sweet pepper and paprika.

Tenderloin. I want to make it spicy in Asian style. That is, with onion-garlic-ginger-chili. Vegetables. As we remember, part of the eggplant and part of the sweet pepper are added to the lamb. There will still be quite a lot left, although you could buy three kilograms of eggplant. This means that the rest can be made into purely vegetable dinners, since it’s not all the time to eat meat. So, like this:

— eggplants with sesame sauce (I have it ready-made); — eggplants + zucchini + sweet peppers with garlic (you can also add a little fried onion and a lot of tomatoes here); - There will still be tomatoes and onions left - you can use them to season part of the shank soup.

Some of the roasted vegetables can be made into vegetable dinners.

Recipes

There are no limits to the variety of recipes for delicious and healthy food. Below are recipes for healthy eating for a month that will inspire you to carry out your own culinary experiments.

Breakfast

There are several breakfast recipes that are ideal for proper nutrition:

Cereals. 4-5 table. Pour boiling water over a tablespoon of oatmeal and leave covered for 5 minutes. Place baked pumpkin and banana on it, sprinkle with sesame seeds or chia.

Spinach omelette. Fry the spinach and tomatoes in a frying pan, then pour the beaten egg over them. Cover with a lid and remove from heat after 5 minutes.

Dessert with chia seeds. Pour kefir with added sucrose over the chia seeds overnight and put them in the refrigerator. Serve with your favorite fruits or berries.

Lunches

We are used to the fact that preparing dinner takes a lot of time. Our recipes are prepared specifically for busy housewives and provide healthy nutrition that is acceptable to everyone on a budget.

Ratatouille

. Place eggplant, zucchini, tomato and cheese cut into circles alternating on a greased baking sheet. Serve with stewed pepper, onion and garlic sauce. Cover the baking sheet with foil and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

Whole grain pene with vegetables and breast

. Breast, carrots and celery are stewed with olive oil, tomatoes, peppers, garlic and basil are added. Add the cooked foam into the pan and mix.

Dolma

. Grape leaves are steamed in boiling water, rice is soaked in water. Chopped onion and tomato are mixed with rice and minced beef and wrapped in grape leaves, poured with tomato sauce and simmered for 30 minutes.

Dinners

Each of these recipes for proper dinners is unique - it can be prepared at home in no more than five minutes:

Salad of vegetables and boiled eggs

. Mix sliced ​​boiled eggs with cucumber, corn, peas and season with yogurt.

Grilled breast with vegetables

. The pre-prepared boiled breast is cut into plastic pieces and placed on a grill pan. Vegetables cut in the same way are sent after the breast. Fry for 10 minutes on each side.

Berry and curd dessert

. The cottage cheese is decorated with your favorite thawed berries or fruits on top.

Broccoli omelette

. The cabbage is disassembled into inflorescences, poured with beaten salted egg and fried on both sides until cooked.

Squid with vegetables

. Cleaned and cut into rings, squid is stewed in a frying pan until the liquid evaporates. Then lemon juice, spices to taste, spinach and tomatoes are added to it. After 3 minutes, remove from heat.

Tips and motivation

If you are on the path to proper nutrition for the first time and decide to use it for weight loss, then you cannot avoid common mistakes.

Most often, the first steps on proper nutrition are accompanied by:

1. Breaking into flour and sweets. When you really want it, you can indulge yourself in some healthy sweets: honey, dried and fresh fruits, marshmallows. However, their number must be strictly limited.
2. Eating fried and smoked foods. You should choose baking, stewing, boiling, steaming or grilling as cooking methods.
3. Preference for thermally processed vegetables. Include as many fresh vegetables and herbs in their unheated form as possible in your menu. They are the main source of vitamins, enzymes and other biologically active compounds. Also be sure to eat berries and unsweetened fruits. The amount of sweet fruits (bananas, grapes) consumed should be limited.
4. Alcohol abuse. Alcohol itself is a low-calorie product, however, it is a strong depressant and appetite activator. As a result of drinking alcohol, you no longer control the caloric content of food and portion sizes, which inevitably leads to overeating.
5. Uneven distribution of food calories. A meager breakfast of a cup of tea, a snack of bread for lunch, but an unreasonably rich dinner will not bring the desired weight loss and will cause digestive problems.
6. Increasing the serving size. This often happens due to abandoning the usual high-calorie foods. We try to compensate for the energy value of food with its volume. Thus, the weight stays the same, the stomach and intestines stretch, and the abundance of food causes discomfort and gas formation.
7. Skipping meals. By skipping one of your meals, especially in the first half of the day, you risk working up a voracious appetite and overeating at the next meal.
8. Abuse of salt and ready-made sauces. Excessive salt consumption provokes swelling, so it should not be consumed uncontrollably. In many ready-made semi-finished products, sauces, and seasonings, salt is added in excess and this must be remembered.

In order to avoid mistakes and lose weight with proper nutrition in a month, analyze your eating behavior. This is easy to do with a food diary.

Write down everything you ate and why you ate it. Then draw conclusions about the causes of eating disorders and deviations from nutritional intake. Perhaps you are eating stress or boredom.

The right motivation will help you overcome the difficulties of the first stages of proper nutrition: you become slimmer and more attractive; your health is improving every day; people of the opposite sex began to pay attention to you.

You have seen positive changes at work associated with a promotion; you can wear fashionable clothes that you were previously embarrassed to wear because you were overweight; Every day you become more confident in yourself.

Every lost gram will bring a girl or man a feeling of joy. Healthy eating will give you a lot of energy and a positive mood. You will want to reach new heights of self-improvement.

Detailed action plan

Shop!

In the afternoon I went to the market, which was slowly closing down - it’s always twenty percent cheaper. I didn’t have a clear plan - I think I’ll act according to the situation. In the meat section I bought a 2 kg leg of lamb, a fairly large pork tenderloin and two kilograms of the middle part of a beef shank (where there is a lot of meat, a piece of bone, and little connective tissue). At the vegetable store I bought two kilograms of eggplants, sweet peppers, onions and plum tomatoes. Plus a few heads of garlic and three hot peppers. I have olive and ghee oil at home, otherwise I would buy it too. And a box full of spices - otherwise you would need cumin, coriander, star anise with cardamom, paprika, and curry. Or don't you need curry? Well, I'll decide at home.

Bake the meat in the oven!

Upon entering the house, I first turned on the oven to convection mode at 230 °C. Then I sorted out the bags and at the same time went through the refrigerator. It became clear that the zucchini in it began to die, and the fresh ginger root began to look somehow... stale. So they also need to be implemented. But first, the meat. I'll cut it and spread it later, but before that it needs to be baked. Rub the leg of lamb and pork tenderloin with salt and pepper and brush with olive oil. I salt the shank a little. I have a large oven, I cover a baking tray with baking paper, lay out the meat (leg fat side up) and put it in the oven, it is already hot. After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 150 °C. The tenderloin is ready in another 15 minutes (I take it out), the leg of lamb will need to spend about 2 hours there, and for now I’ll turn the shank over and let it bake on the other side. At the same time, I move on to everything else.

Pork tenderloin in the oven: 30 minutes and done

Deal with vegetables!

First, of course, wash everything: fill the sink completely, submerge the vegetables, let them soak, rinse again and put them in the dryer. I need millions of bowls so as not to mix anything up, from the very beginning I lay everything out separately. Cut the eggplants lengthwise into thick (2.5–3 cm) layers. Sweet peppers - cut in half lengthwise, remove the core. Peel the onion and cut into thick feathers (this is the fastest). Tomatoes – 8 parts each. Separate the garlic into cloves, quickly crush each one - after this the peel is removed in one motion. Peeled - chop. Peel and chop the ginger, chop the chili with seeds and partitions, my husband is a fire eater. What else do we have there? Zucchini? It is in large cubes.

Preparing vegetables for baking

As soon as the shank and tenderloin disappear from the baking sheet, eggplants greased with olive oil are placed in the free space - they usually need 20 minutes to fry and become soft. I put the eggplants in batches, three approaches just fit. At the same time, I water them with the juice released from the lamb. In the fourth round, peppers are added, but I put a small part aside raw, because they go with pork, the story with which is below.

Monday

Breakfast : oatmeal porridge with dried fruits or jam.

Lunch : soup with meatballs, chicken in the oven.

Dinner : lazy dumplings.

Life hack: if you don’t have any time to cook during the day, you can cook the soup, marinate the chicken and freeze the dumplings on Sunday.

Boil more soup so that you have some left over for Tuesday.

Set aside cooked chicken breast fillet for Tuesday dinner salad. The rest can be eaten with any side dish of your choice.

A chicken in the oven

Ingredients:

• Chicken - 1.5 kg (whole gutted, maybe a little more or less)
• Mayonnaise - 100 g (or sour cream)
• Garlic - 4-5 teeth.
• Vegetable oil - 50 ml.
• Spices for chicken - 2-3 tsp.
• Oregano - 0.5 tsp.
• Mustard - 2-3 tsp.
• Salt - to taste

Wash the chicken and dry it with a paper towel. Mix all the spices with salt and rub the chicken on all sides, also inside. Wash the garlic and pass through a garlic press. Prepare a sauce of mayonnaise, garlic, mustard and salt to taste. Coat the chicken inside and out again with the sauce. Let marinate for 30-40 minutes. Ideally, this can be done in the morning and left to marinate in the refrigerator.

Place the chicken in a roasting bag. Add vegetable oil to the bag and seal. Prick the top of the bag a few times with a fork to prevent it from bursting in the oven. Bake for 70 to 90 minutes, depending on the weight of the chicken. If you have the “grill” mode, then at the end of baking, carefully open the bag and leave for 10 minutes at 200 degrees.

Lazy dumplings

Ingredients:

• Cottage cheese – 700 g
• Wheat flour - 200 g
• Salt - 0.5 tsp.

It may take more or less flour, it depends on the moisture content of the selected cottage cheese.

Salt the cottage cheese and add flour in parts. Mix first with a spoon, then with your hands. The dough should be soft, not dense. Don't overdo it with flour. Divide the dough into 3-4 parts and roll each part into a sausage. Slice the dumplings.

Dip each in flour and freeze on a floured board if you are not going to cook right away. Frozen dumplings do not need to be thawed. Immediately place in boiling water and cook for 3 minutes after the dumplings float to the surface. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to plates and serve with sour cream, butter and/or jam.

The main benefits of a balanced diet

This approach to losing weight has the following advantages:

1. Thanks to a balanced diet, the body receives all the necessary vitamins, beneficial microelements, proteins, fats and carbohydrates. During a diet, a person does not feel hungry.
2. The products included in the menu have a positive effect on the functioning of the heart, liver, lungs, gastrointestinal tract and the whole body. In addition, it begins to cleanse itself as a result of the removal of decay products, excess water and toxins.
3. Proper nutrition not only helps you get rid of extra pounds, but also improves the condition of your nails, hair, and skin.
4. A balanced diet reduces the likelihood of developing cancer.
5. The lost weight does not come back.