As you go about structuring your meal plan for your weight loss diet, one food that you might consider to include is spinach. Spinach is great for not only weight loss purposes, but also for promoting overall health, so it’s one food that is not to be missed out on.
Most people get so caught up in preparing their salads with traditional forms of lettuce such as iceberg or romaine that they forget to consider adding this one into the mix.
Let’s give you a quick glimpse of all the many reasons why spinach should be making its way into your diet plan.
How spinach helps with natural weight loss
The very first reason why spinach is great for weight loss purposes is because it’s so incredibly low in calories. With just one cup containing just 41 calories, it’s an easy addition into any diet menu.
Since much of these calories will be fiber as well, this further reduces the ‘net calorie intake’ you’ll receive from the food as some of the fiber will pass out through the body undigested.
Spinach is also a very good source of iron, which is important for dieters to be consuming regularly as they will often be cutting back on red meat. If you aren’t looking for alternative sources of iron such as this food, you might in the long-term begin to suffer from iron-deficiency anemia.
Symptoms of anaemia often cause feelings of fatigue to occur not only during your workout sessions, but on an everyday basis as well.
When you’re easy to fatigue during your workouts, this may prevent you from getting the most of your exercise regime, which might hold you back as far as your overall weight loss goals are concerned.
Let’s look into some of the other health benefits concerning spinach.
Spinach vitamins and minerals list
From a health standpoint, spinach has a lot to offer as well. Spinach is very strong in a wide variety of different vitamins and minerals including:
- Vitamin A Foods and RDA
- Vitamin B1 Thiamine Foods and RDA
- Vitamin B3 Niacin Foods
- Vitamin C Foods Sources, Functions and RDA
- Vitamin E Foods Sources, Functions and RDA
- Vitamin K
In addition to that, spinach also contains the following minerals:
- Calcium
- Copper
- Folate
- Magnesium
- Manganese
- Phosphorus
- Potassium
- Zinc
Eating this food is practically like serving yourself up a multi-vitamin.
Spinach is also known to have strong anti-inflammatory benefits, so may help to protect against cancer as well as any other conditions related to inflammation of the body.
In addition the calcium and vitamin K combination that spinach has to offer may also help promote strong bones and reduce your risk of stress fractures.
Tips for increasing your intake of spinach
So once you’ve decided that it’s time you start adding more spinach to your daily diet, how do you go about doing so?
Consider replacing half the lettuce of your traditional salad with spinach instead. Another great way to incorporate this food into your diet is adding it to pitas or on top of a sandwich instead of the usual romaine. Finally, consider preparing it in a dip. Spinach dip is a highly liked dip that will work perfectly with raw veggies.
So make sure you aren’t overlooking spinach in your weight loss diet plan. Begin consuming spinach at least a couple times per week and you’ll start to reap many benefits because of it.
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