Eating nutrient-rich foods, such as lean protein and legumes, can support your overall health and help you maintain a moderate body weight.
Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. While weight loss is not a magic bullet for health, and not everyone needs to pursue weight loss, it might be something you want to work toward to feel your healthiest.
Coupled with regular movement, your diet can affect your health outcomes. (Just make sure to talk with a healthcare professional before making drastic changes!)
Eating nutrient-rich foods, such as lean protein and legumes, can support your overall health and help you maintain a moderate body weight.
Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. While weight loss is not a magic bullet for health, and not everyone needs to pursue weight loss, it might be something you want to work toward to feel your healthiest.
Coupled with regular movement, your diet can affect your health outcomes. (Just make sure to talk with a healthcare professional before making drastic changes!)
If losing weight is your goal, these 18 foods may help support a healthy weight loss journey, according to science.
ADVERTISEMENT
1. Whole eggs
Once feared for being high in cholesterol, whole eggs have been making a comeback.
These fears were rooted in misconceptions that overlooked how your body regulates cholesterol levels. Your body sources it, as needed, from your diet or your liver to maintain its baseline levels (1Trusted Source).
While people with elevated baseline levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol should be more conscious of how much cholesterol they get in their diet, moderate egg consumption — between 7–12 eggs a week — has been proven safe for many people (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source).
Although a higher intake of eggs may raise the levels of LDL cholesterol in some people, eggs are one of the best foods to eat if you’re looking to reach or maintain a healthier weight.
Eggs are incredibly nutrient-dense. Interestingly, almost all its nutrients are found in the yolks — like choline and vitamin D — though egg whites deliver 4–6 grams of protein each (5Trusted Source).
Because they’re high in protein and fat, they help you feel full (6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source).
That’s key, because responding to your body’s internal fullness and hunger cues can help you reach or maintain a healthy weight. In other words, getting in the habit of eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full can help your weight loss goals (8Trusted Source, 9Trusted Source).
A study including 50 healthy people with more weight showed that eating eggs and buttered toast for breakfast — instead of cereal, milk, and orange juice — increased feelings of satiety (fullness) for the next 4 hours (10Trusted Source).
Similarly, another study among 48 healthy adults found that those who ate an egg-based breakfast, either high or moderate in both protein and fiber, reported higher satiety than those who ate low fiber cereal and milk (11Trusted Source).2. Leafy greens
Leafy greens include kale, spinach, collard greens, Swiss chard, and a few others.
They have several properties that make them perfect for reaching or maintaining a healthy weight. For example, they pack fiber and nutrients that keep you satiated and hydrated.
What’s more, leafy greens contain thylakoids, plant compounds that have been linked with increased satiety and better appetite management in at least two human studies (12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).
It’s worth noting, however, that both studies are small, and participants took a 5-gram thylakoid supplement — the amount found in about 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of raw spinach (13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).
You must be logged in to post a comment.