No food has magical weight-loss properties, but some foods can help you reach your weight-loss goals. To lose weight, you must combine calorie reduction with calorie expenditure, which means eating less and exercising more. Cucumber, ginger and lime can help you eat less because they enhance the flavor of low-calorie foods without adding many calories themselves. When low-cal foods taste better, you're more likely to eat them, which means you're more likely to succeed in meeting your weight-loss goal because you won't be so tempted to break your diet.
Step 1
Make flavored tea or water with one or two of these ingredients. Cut off a small disc of fresh ginger and steep it in hot water with a teaspoon of honey, soak cucumber slices in a pitcher of water, flavor your water with a slice of lime, or make a fresh limeade with agave nectar instead of sugar. Proper hydration is imperative for the bodily functions responsible for breaking down fat, and these no-calorie drinks are a great substitute for sugary, high-calorie fluids like juice or soda. In addition, drinking one of these beverages may help decrease your appetite, which will keep you from consuming excess calories.
Step 2
Make a fresh salad with sliced cucumbers. Cucumbers are low in calories, so they can fill you up without ruining your daily caloric goals. If you don't like lettuce, make a Greek salad, which uses tomatoes, cucumbers and olives.
Step 3
Add flavor to a healthy saute of vegetables with a few slices of fresh ginger. Boosting the flavors of vegetables will help you enjoy these healthy, low-calorie foods, so you'll feel full and won't be craving something "tastier," like refined carbohydrates and saturated fats.
Step 4
Make your own healthy salsa with fresh tomatoes, onion, cilantro and lime. Use as a healthy salad dressing or eat it with vegetable sticks for a low-cal snack.
Step 5
Use lime or ginger as the base flavor in a fat-free marinade for lean chicken, pork or seafood.
Step 6
Squeeze fresh lime over brown rice and beans, mix fresh chopped ginger into scrambled egg-whites or toss whole-grain pasta with freshly diced cucumbers. Whole-grains and lean protein help you feel fuller longer, and they keep your metabolism churning longer after you finish your meal.
Step 7
Consult healthy cookbooks and online resources, such as MayoClinic.com, EatingWell.com or EatBetterAmerica.com, for tasty new recipes that include these ingredients, or create your own healthy recipes by experimenting with these flavors.
Tips and Warnings
- Some websites claim that ginger helps boost your metabolism, but no conclusive evidence exists to support this claim.
- All weight-loss depends on burning more calories than you consume. This requires a combination of burning extra calories and consuming less calories, which means exercising more and eating healthier, lower-calorie foods. Simply consuming cucumbers, ginger and lime without implementing these changes will not make you lose weight.
References
- Revive Your Life; The H2O Factor: Hydration Supports Healthy Weight Loss; Kendall Hopwood; March 8, 2009
- "Canadian Living"; 10 Foods That Will Help You Lose Weight; Kat Tancock; 2011
- HelpGuide.org: Healthy Weight Loss & Dieting Tips
- MayoClinic.com; The Mayo Clinic Diet: A Wight-Loss Program For Life; April 5, 2011
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