The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee stated several important nutrients are under consumed by most Americans. This is in part due to underconsumption of certain key food groups. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains and dairy provide these certain key nutrients.
Underconsumed nutrients by most Americans include vitamins A, D, E and C and folate, calcium, magnesium, fiber, potassium, and iron (for adolescent and premenopausal females)
The two nutrients that are consistently overconsumed are: Sodium and saturated fat.
A healthy dietary pattern for you to engage in is high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes and nuts. Moderate your alcohol intake and lower your intake of red and processed meat and lower your intake of sugar or sweetened foods and drinks and refined grains.
Your diet consistently higher in plant based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds and lower in calories and animal based food is more health promoting for you and is associated with less environmental impact than the current U.S. diet.
Your behavior changes improve your health outcomes: reducing your screen time, reducing your frequency of eating out and fast food restaurants, increasing family meals, self-monitoring of diet and body weight and effective food labeling to target healthy food choices.
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee encourages your consumption of healthy dietary patterns that are low in saturated fat, added sugars and sodium. The goals for you, the weight loss client and the general population are less than 2,300 mg dietary sodium per day, less than 10% of total calories from saturated fat per day and maximum of 10% of total calories from added sugars per day.
Small changes in your weight loss behaviors add up to you losing weight on a weekly basis. This means you are creating a caloric deficit. Decreasing your caloric intake by drinking water instead of 20oz soda (250 calories) and adding a 45min walk, 2.5 miles (about 250 calories) you, a weight loss management client, would lose about a pound per week. 3,500 calories are in a pound of fat so reducing your caloric intake by 500-1,000 calories per day would hit the mark of you losing approximately 1 pound per week.
Your continued weight loss after a few months becomes much more difficult. Your metabolism changes and your energy expenditure changes and your caloric intake must be recalculated for success to continue. Thus, you and the weight loss coach must strategize a new plan to move forward with your success in losing weight.
You may struggle to balance caloric intake and caloric expenditure and regain the weight you lost. Adults over 60 years of age are much more likely to have obesity. Due to lack of movement and exercise, long steady loss of muscle mass and fat gain translates to fewer calories burned. This metabolic slow down can be responsible for your weight gain.
Your Weight Loss Management and your behavioral change programs are best when programs are adhered to for 6 month to 1 year.
Your Weight Loss Management Maintenance includes monthly frequent contact with your Weight Loss Coach, regular body monitoring and tracking the consumption of your reduced calorie diet.
Weight Loss Management Relapses are a normal part of your behavior change. The Weight Loss Management Coach helps you to anticipate your barriers, identify your problems and develop solutions and strategies with you, the weight loss client. This will help you increase further behavior changes and solidify your adherence to the weight loss program.
There are many weight loss supplements, diets and gimmicks which do not lead to your long term weight loss management. The journey to weight loss requires you to make careful and meaningful food choices. The earlier you can introduce healthy food choices and healthy food choices are then integrated into your weight loss management program, will then determine how lasting, sustainable and attainable your weight loss management lifestyle is going to be.