The convenience of buying and consuming frozen meals, prepared grocery store items and processed foods makes it easy to put together a diet that contains very few whole, natural foods. Eating only unprocessed or minimally processed foods, however, is the more nutritious choice and can even help you lose a significant amount of weight.
Benefits
According to Katherine Chauncey, Ph.D., a registered dietitian with the network, Texas Tech Physicians, a whole foods diet can work as a treatment for mild to severe obesity as well as high blood pressure and glucose intolerance. Whole foods also hold a nutritional advantage over processed items. MayoClinic.com notes that whole foods are typically richer in dietary fiber, micronutrients and protective antioxidants and phytochemicals than processed foods.
Calorie Counts
Whole foods often boast lower calorie counts than their processed counterparts, which is part of what makes them such excellent choices for weight loss. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a veggie salad without dressing has only about 35 calories, and a large apple or banana both have around 100; all are fat-free. A small fast-food hamburger, alternately, has close to 350 calories and 15 g fat, and a processed cereal bar has about 250 calories and 2 g fat.
Weight Loss
To lose weight and keep it off, you must burn more calories than you eat. Thus, a whole foods diet will make the most dramatic difference for you if you currently eat a lot of processed and prepared foods. Reducing your daily calorie count even modestly with the help of whole foods can help you slim down. If you normally eat about 2,500 calories per day, for example, and you begin eating a total of about 1,500 with whole foods, you could drop up to 2 lbs. per week.
Considerations
Although a "whole food" can be classified as a food that is unprocessed, the term has different meanings for some people. For example, baked granola that is made up of only natural ingredients may be "whole" to one person and not to another. Since weight loss is a matter of calorie totals, it can be helpful to focus more on choosing low-calorie whole foods than on pinpointing a precise definition of the term. Eating more whole foods can be beneficial for almost everyone, but it's still advisable to get your physician's approval before adopting any new diet plan for weight loss.
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