Obesity is a precursor to many diseases, but losing weight is not easy. In fact, the inability to lose weight drives people to consider crazy ideas. Nevertheless, there is an easier idea to reduce your weight unless your obesity is due to some underlying medical condition. There are a number of recipes that can help you to bring down your weight. But before coming to the weight loss recipes you need to know the foods that help in losing weight.

Foods that make great weight loss recipes

Foods may help in reducing weight in three ways:

• By reducing the amount of food taken
• By reducing the number of carbohydrates, fat, and sugar consumed
• By taking foods that may burn a portion of the fat in your body

There are foods which can help in reducing weight in all three ways.

Foods that make you feel full

If you feel full for a long time, you don’t need to take food for a long time. This itself may reduce the amount of food taken and therefore help in cutting flab to a great extent. Protein and fiber-rich foods such as beans, some vegetables, eggs, sausages, nuts, apples, yogurt, grapefruit etc. are in this category.

 Soups for weight loss

Take one small onion and dice it. Take two cloves of garlic and mince it. Take a cupful of diced carrots. We are going to add bulk to the soup by adding a generous portion of diced cabbage, about 4 cups. Also, add 1 cup of green bean and one can diced tomato. Remember to use low potassium tomato since normal tomato is high in potassium and may be harmful to kidneys. Take 2 chopped bell peppers, 1 teaspoon thyme, and pepper to taste, two cups of small florets of broccoli and 2 cups of sliced zucchini.

Preparation

In a large pot sauté the onion & garlic paste until it has softened. Now add diced cabbage, carrots & green bean and cook the assortment for another 5 minutes. Now stir in the bell peppers, tomatoes, bay leaves and seasonings and Simmer 6 for another 7 minutes. Add zucchini & broccoli and simmer the mixture for another 5 minutes. You can take this soup as breakfast and keep hunger at bay for a long time.

Foods that help in reducing the number of carbohydrates

Almost all vegetables, except potato and some others, are low in carbohydrates. There are many fruits which are also low in carbohydrates such as watermelon, strawberries and other berries, avocados, cantaloupe, honeydew, peach, coconut, grapes, apricot, cherries, orange, mango, lemon etc. You can also have lean chicken which is very low in carbohydrates as well as fats. So you can have all these vegetables and chicken and some kind of fishes to reduce the amount of carbohydrate intake.

Weight loss recipes

Chicken and spinach can make one of the best weight loss smoothie recipes. A chicken and spinach smoothie can be a fulfilling lunch option with very low carbohydrates and fat. Take about 6 ounces of baby spinach and one large portion, about 8 ounces, of chicken breast and chop both finely. Take about 5 cups of chicken broth, preferably with low sodium content. Apart from this, you need one ounce of black or green beans, chopped, and freshly ground pepper to taste. Take one and half a cup of bell paper, one large clove of garlic, finely minced, about 17 ounces of extra virgin olive oil, and one-fourth cup of cheese.

Preparation

Heat 2 spoons of olive oil in a frying pan and put the bell paper into it while stirring followed by the finely chopped chicken pieces. Continue stirring until the chicken becomes brown. Now add garlic and stir for another minute or so until the garlic turns golden brown. Now add the chicken broth to it and stir. Let the broth boil until the chicken is cooked. Now take the chicken pieces out and add the spinach and beans pieces to it and continue to boil it until you get a blend of flavors, i.e about 5 minutes. Now take one teaspoon of olive oil, mix it with the cheese and put it in a food processor. Process the mixture until It forms a paste. Now combine all together and bring the whole thing to boil for just 2 minutes and take it off the flame, season it with pepper and serve hot.

Foods that burn fat

Foods like the sardine, tuna, tofu etc contain a high amount of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats which help in cutting down on the bad fat, i.e saturated fats. They can make great soups for weight loss.

Weight loss recipes

5-6 fresh sliced mushrooms, 6 ounces of diced tofu, 6 ounces of cubed salmon, 3 tablespoons sweet miso and 2 minced scallions.

Preparation

Put mushroom and tofu in water and bring it to boil. Now lower the heat, simmer the mixture for 2-3 minutes and add salmon along with diluted miso into it. Cook the whole thing for another 3-5 minutes, garnish it with scallions and serve hot.