What Is The Mediterranean Diet? The Mediterranean diet emphasizes fresh vegetables and fruits, beans, legumes, pulses, nuts, whole grains, seafood and fish with occasional poultry or red meat. Other essential elements are the use of extra virgin olive oil, moderating portions, reducing dairy products, using herbs for seasoning instead of salt as well drinking lots of water.
The Mediterranean Diet is the easiest to adopt, most sustainable, and healthiest way of eating on the planet. This diet focuses on delicious combinations of ingredients and portion control to help people lose extra pounds and maintain a healthy weight. Other long term benefits include the reversal of heart disease, diabetes, and other serious illnesses. Although the benefits were first recognized in the northern Mediterranean countries, ingredients worldwide work well with the Mediterranean Diet.
Hi, my name is Rick Helvey. I am frequently asked the best way to lose weight or lose belly fat. Hands down it is fully adopting the Mediterranean Diet. This Way of Eating has done exactly that for me and for thousands of people just like us who had a health scare or decided to lose weight for good. Long term weight loss and a healthy diet is a very achievable goal can if done the right way. Improving your health and sense of well-being should never be a nice to have, it should always be a must have. Hardly a fad, the Mediterranean Diet has been around for millennia and continues to be the way of eating recommended by doctors, nutritionists, and other health care providers. The best part is you will lose weight and feel great while eating delicious meals.
Although the Mediterranean Diet works great for healthy people, it is recommended for those a wide range of diseases, including diabetes and other obesity related diseases. Most people who get started wish they had started sooner, both short and long term weight loss and health improvements are waiting for those who are willing to change.
What is the best way to start? Many people start with a recipe book, but usually that is not enough. To fully adopt this diet, lose weight, and keep it off it is necessary to have a workable plan. Depending on your current way of eating this change can be difficult, as it is rare that someone can pick up a recipe book and quickly and permanently change the habits of a lifetime. Most people need help on how to effectively change a habit, what is needed to get started, and where to find support.
The articles on this website answer many of the questions that people have about the Mediterranean Diet and give food for thought about other subjects. Starting the Mediterranean Diet can be a challenge for a number of reasons and the articles in the header above address those reasons with researched or anecdotal data gathered from the Mediterranean Diet Facebook group and elsewhere.
The Changes Necessary to Adopt the Mediterranean Diet addresses the common misconceptions and pitfalls that keep potential Med Dieters from fully adopting and sticking with this Way of Eating. This change is more than just following some recipes, and to adopt it fully there are other habits that need to change. Additionally there are social and psychological factors to be aware of. Social factors may include family or friend support or lack of support for the changes you will need to make. Psychological factors may include stress or emotional eating that may need to be overcome. Recognizing Moral Licensing, Behavioral Economics and Progressive Extremism may help with making the transition. Having the incentive of seeing others succeed may also, that’s why my Facebook Group is an important key to successful change.
The article What is the Mediterranean Diet talks about the history of this Way of Eating, and when researchers determined the best diet based on the healthiest groups of people in modern society. Although the purity of this Way of Eating has been diluted by the younger generation and modern lifestyles, the guidelines for a lifelong healthy lifestyle are still valid. In fact they are more valid today than they were sixty years ago when the Mediterranean Diet was identified. As society becomes more complicated in the knowledge revolution and people become more sedentary there is more need than ever to live a healthy lifestyle through exercise and nutrition. The Mediterranean Diet encourages us to sit back, take a deep breath and slowly savor a delicious meal.
There are many recipes on this website, broken into categories and easily searchable. All recipes have nutritional information and all are compliant with the Mediterranean Diet guidelines. The recipes are in categories such as lunch or dinner meals, smoothies, breakfast, instant pot, and a few desserts as well. If you have a specific ingredient you are fond of, for instance broccoli or lentil, you can search by those keywords and all the recipes containing those ingredients will appear in the list. I am adding new recipes most weeks so it a great place to revisit.
The Get Started Guide has ended up being the most popular feature of this website, with more and more people downloading and using the guide to get their start on this Way of Eating. This guide lays out the exact factors that the healthy people of the northern Mediterranean practiced when they were identified as healthiest. Some of these factors include drinking lots of water, not drinking calories, filling up on vegetables, breads and pasta as side dishes, occasional meats if any, lots of seafood, and heavy use of olive oils. Grab this guide now if you haven’t and use it to get on track, it is easier than you think.
Speaking of easier than you think, the Facebook Mediterranean Diet has a side group called Mediterranean Diet and Intermittent Fasting. This group helps people overcome all obstacles to losing weight and returning to robust health. The two practices work extremely well when don together. The reduced calories of Intermittent Fasting are made of healthy and nutritious food in the right combinations. Our group experienced weight loss and other benefits immediately and ongoing. The other benefits included reducing or eliminating hot flashes, clearing of skin blemishes, clothes fitting better, more energy, reduced mood swings, better attitude, reduction and eliminations of cravings and more. What a find! The article here discusses this in detail.
On the subject of craving there is an entire article Say Goodbye to Craving that identifies the physiological reasons people have cravings an what the eating better foods and taking control of your diet does to reduce or eliminate those cravings. Parts of these cravings are related to emotional or stress eating as mentioned above. Parts of the cravings are related to the body’s strong urge to be a record of the past and seek comfort in the familiar. Changing that dynamic takes some work as people have limited willpower, adopting the Way of Eating without using all you available willpower requires the understanding of some key factors and positively addressing them.
The next article addressing strategies that are related to the first wave of the pandemic is How to Stay Healthy. This article discusses strategies that can be used to improve your immune system and become healthier over a period of days, months, or years. Taking progressive steps or going all in is usually dependent on personality, tolerance for change, skills around change, motivation to change, and social factors. Internet searches for boosting your immune system are at an all-time high and people that are following the Mediterranean Diet and/or Intermittent Fasting are already taking better care of themselves than the vast majority of the population. Interestingly when I started writing about the Mediterranean Diet and developed this website and my Facebook Group I was already experimenting with intermittent Fasting but didn’t really see the connection between the two practices. However people in the Mediterranean Diet Facebook Group kept commenting on how they were also intermittent Fasting, and some of the benefits they felt. It became more and more apparent over time that these two practices worked extremely well together and the pandemic seems like an ideal time to break old habits and adopt new healthy habits. The how to Stay healthy habit article explores this finding and encourages everyone to boost their immune system, for good.
The next article goes back to basics. Called simply Beginning the Mediterranean Diet the article walks through the process and reasons for starting and continuing with this Way of Eating. Sometimes the first steps are the most difficult to take and many people like having a step by step process to get going the right way. This article, the get Started Guide, and my book ensures that people new get what they need to start, people that have been using this Way of Eating find some new insights into the best practices, recipes, and motivations to continue.
The last article was published as a result of the pandemic and the increasing stress everyone feels due to being isolated, fearful, and having other disruptions in their normal life. Emotional or Stress Eating and What to Do About It delves into the reasons why people will eat more when stressed, and identifies the signs that you are stress eating. Recognizing those signs is a key to interrupting the compulsion to overeat. Emotional eating typically includes eating foods that are bad for you, eating too much of that food, at the wrong time of day, and eating well past the point of fullness. In the article I share effective strategies to reduce then eliminate this compulsion.
These articles are all here to ensure that everyone can get started on the right track to losing weight and eating the healthy, nutritious and delicious Mediterranean Diet foods in the right amounts. To supercharge your journey pick up the Get Started Losing Weight with the Mediterranean Diet book.That is why I am gifting my Lose Weight, Feel Great Mediterranean Diet Companion Guide to visitors. This guide provides the perfect starting point to start your new healthy life. If you find this helpful you can take the next step and pick up my Get Started Losing Weight with the Mediterranean Diet book that tackles the difficult subjects and provides the answers that have helped so many others make this a permanent change. Click the link below to receive your free companion guide, and if you are not part of our Facebook Group also click that link to join. We have many active supportive members that are answering questions, sharing recipes and encouraging new members.
Join our Mediterranean Diet Facebook group where thousands got their start. In that fun, informative supportive group we discuss how the Mediterranean Diet helps with weight loss, nutrition, healing, and health. We will be delighted to see you there!