If you normally consume full-fat dairy products and you are trying to lose weight, switching to low-fat varieties can greatly assist your efforts. If you don't drink milk often, choosing it as a beverage during weight loss will improve your nutritional profile and your long-term health outlook. All calories are not alike, especially when you are losing weight. While dieting, you need to get more nutrition in fewer calories. Lose weight safely by including low-fat milk in a healthy diet plan.
Calorie Intake
Fit milk into your weight-loss diet by setting an appropriate daily calorie limit from the outset. Evaluate your caloric intake by adding up the calories per serving of the foods that you eat, as listed on package labels. Ask your doctor to help you set a weight-loss goal and total calorie boundaries for achieving it. To shed pounds, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn. The U.S. Department of Agriculture considers a 500-calorie deficit a safe level.
Milk Nutrition Facts
Nutrient-dense foods such as milk help you lose weight by satisfying your body's needs in fewer calories. While milk is best known for its calcium and fortified vitamin D contents, you also get significant protein, potassium, magnesium and B vitamins from this dairy product. Added vitamin D helps your body absorb the calcium in milk. Calcium and vitamin D are crucial to the maintenance of bone density and tooth integrity.
Best Milk for Weight Loss
You lose little but saturated and unsaturated fat and calories by choosing a reduced-fat milk. Only vitamin D content decreases slightly with a decrease in fat, while the concentrations of milk's other nutrients increase instead when fat is removed. Consider the calorie savings per 1-cup serving: whole milk, 149 calories; 2 percent milk, 122 calories; 1 percent milk, 112 calories; and nonfat milk, 83 calories. If you usually drink a 12-oz. soda with meals, switching to 8 oz. of nonfat milk will save you 54 calories per serving, with a significant nutritional boost.
How to Make the Change
If you avoid fat-free milk because its flavor and texture differ from whole milk's, ease yourself into the switch. Going "cold turkey" doesn't work for many people, but making gradual dietary changes does. The American Diabetes Association suggests stepping your way down from whole milk through the different types of milk, allowing yourself time to get used to lower fat contents. Move from whole to 2 percent, then to 1 percent and finally to fat-free milk over the course of a week or two. Incorporate two to three daily servings within your calorie limits.
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