The food-refining process, where food manufacturers add refined sugar, flour and preservatives to your food, helps foods to last longer on the shelf. But those refined ingredients also strip many foods of their natural nutritional content, making them filling, yet unhealthy. Refined foods are often high in calories without offering your body the nutrition you need. You can lose weight with whole foods by eating items that are nutritionally dense yet low in calories. Switch your usual convenience foods for fruits, vegetables, whole grains and proteins to see a difference in your waistline.
Step 1
Clean out your cupboards and fridge. While purchasing healthy foods can certainly help you lose weight, if you always have junk foods and convenience foods in your pantry, you may be tempted to stray. Throw out or donate foods that contain white sugar, refined white flour and preservatives. Start with a clean slate so you have no choice but to eat healthier with a newly stocked pantry.
Step 2
Shop the perimeter when you head to the grocery store. Grocery stores carefully place whole foods like lean meats, fruits and vegetables, dairy and whole grains around the perimeter of the stores so you're more likely to purchase convenience foods from the aisles. Stick to the perimeter only and you'll have a better chance of choosing foods that are nutritionally dense and low in calories to help you lose weight.
Step 3
Read the list of ingredients. What may seem like a healthy choice could often have preservatives. Eating a whole food means eating a food in its purest form. When in doubt, choose the product with the least amount of ingredients to ensure you've made the right choice, suggests the Food and Drug Administration. Look for whole ingredients, like milk, cream, fruit, nuts and whole grains.
Step 4
Eat green whole foods. Fruits and vegetables are dense in fiber, meaning they can help you feel full. They're also low in calories, so you feel fuller with less calories and can lose weight just by switching all of your snacks to fruits and vegetables. Make whole foods easily accessible by slicing and preparing them ahead of time so you can grab and go.
Step 5
Eat meals based around whole foods. For breakfast, steel cut oats with fruit can help fill you up. Lunch may be a natural pita stuffed with lettuce, tomato and boneless, skinless chicken breast. Dinner can be your choice of vegetables with whole-grain pasta or brown rice and a piece of fish. Concentrate on the quality of caloric intake rather than the quantity, suggests the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. This will help you choose whole foods that give you the most nutritional bang for your caloric buck.
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