Evening meals are considered the most insidious. It cannot be ignored, as one popular proverb recommends. But it is important to carefully consider the menu so as not to provoke a food breakdown and not contradict the principles of proper nutrition. Let's consider what is best to eat for dinner to maximize the benefits for the body.
Mistakes you most likely made
Coming home in the evening, you want to eat the entire contents of the refrigerator, or even more. Sitting at the table with your family, one portion imperceptibly gives way to another, and so on, until you feel a heaviness in your stomach and want to lie down. Surely many have had this. And along with overeating at night comes poor sleep and a feeling of exhaustion in the morning.
Sweets and carbohydrates at night also harm the body, blood sugar levels rise, and the hormone insulin begins to be produced. Which, in turn, blocks the production of growth hormone; your own fat reserves are no longer consumed at night, but new ones are formed. The growth of muscle mass stops. Also, increased levels of insulin in the blood can provoke diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, osteochondrosis, hypertension and many others.
To summarize, here are the basic rules you should not forget:
- DO NOT make dinner your main meal;
- Have dinner NOT less than 3-4 hours before bedtime;
- DO NOT eat sweets, junk foods or large amounts of carbohydrates;
- DO NOT make portions too large.
So, we figured out what to avoid. Now is the time to learn what healthy habits are.
What time should you have dinner?
As soon as we go to bed, our body goes into rest mode, starting the process of cell regeneration. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, every hour of the night is dedicated to restoring a specific organ in our body:
- From 23.00 to 1.00: gallbladder
- From 1.00 to 3.00: liver
- From 3.00 to 5.00: light
- From 5.00 to 7.00: large intestine
- From 7.00 to 9.00: stomach.
If we respect our body's biological rhythms and allow it to complete the digestive process by 11 pm (considering that on average it takes 2-3 hours), we will significantly help the body get a good night's rest. Therefore, it is best to finish dinner by 8 pm.
What does a healthy dinner consist of?
During sleep, the body continues to be active. Body cells are renewed and growth hormone is produced. All this happens due to a sufficient amount of amino acids in the body.
While you sleep, the body is actively working, renewing itself and restoring itself. And this happens due to amino acids, which are found in protein foods and vegetables. high in protein for dinner . It is best to supplement your dinner with vegetables, raw or baked. A proper dinner consists of half protein and half fiber (vegetables).
Serving Size
The easiest way to calculate how much it costs to eat for dinner is to use your hands as a guide. A serving of protein is the size of your palm. The amount of vegetables is the same. The portion itself is equal in volume to two palms. If you weigh this amount, it should be no more than 300-400 g .
In terms of calories, dinner should not exceed other meals. Dinner makes up approximately 20-30% of the total diet
What foods should you not eat for dinner?
First of all, these are all kinds of sweets and baked goods. You should avoid tea with lots of cookies and sweets right away. As we said above, insulin slows down the processes that occur during sleep. The main thing in everything is moderation. If you can't live without sweets and tea in the evenings, try making cottage cheese casserole with a sweetener.
You should also forget about fatty and high-calorie dishes. And move carbohydrates, cereals and porridges to an earlier time of day.
List of correct products
If it seemed to you that a proper dinner is a death sentence, and now you will always have to eat the same, then we hasten to convince you. There are a huge number of healthy dinner options and each of them can be adjusted to suit your goals: lose weight, gain weight, or just eat deliciously.
Protein foods for dinner:
- Chicken or turkey fillet without skin;
- A variety of fish, baked or stewed;
- Canned fish in its own juice: tuna, pink salmon, saury, etc.
- Lean meat or minced meat;
- Cottage cheese, cottage cheese casserole;
- Omelettes and scrambled eggs;
- Boiled eggs;
- Legumes: chickpeas, beans, lentils, etc.;
- Seafood: squid, shrimp, mussels, etc.;
- Protein shakes;
- Low-fat cheeses: mozzarella, feta.
Side dish options for dinner:
- Numerous options for fresh vegetable salads;
- Vegetable slices;
- Baked vegetables with spices;
- Vegetable stew;
- Vegetable purees;
- Mushrooms, stewed or baked.
The number of variations of dishes made from these ingredients is endless and can satisfy any request.
Dinner options: what you can and should eat
There are many options for dinner when losing weight, all of them are combined from the following products:
- Meat products. Meat should have a minimum amount of fat, so chicken, rabbit, turkey, and veal are suitable for an evening meal. For variety, you can make minced meat from the selected type of meat.
- Fish and seafood. It is better to choose fish with a low fat content, that is, it is not recommended to eat red (fatty) fish. The ideal option would be: pollock, tilapia, flounder, cod, dorado, sea bass and others. Seafood (shrimp, scallops, mussels, squid and others) are famous for their almost complete absence of fat and high protein content.
- Cottage cheese. The presence of casein in it will allow you to feed the body with amino acids for a long time (in the evening and at night).
- Vegetables. They are rich in dietary fiber, which promotes comfortable digestion. You should not eat starchy vegetables (potatoes) for dinner.
Protein dinner
To effectively lose weight, in addition to nutrition, you need to exercise, which means that the body needs to receive the right amount of protein for muscle growth.
Examples of protein products for a proper dinner have already been listed. The best options for eating protein-rich foods are the following: cottage cheese omelette, grilled chicken fillet, steamed fish, baked rabbit, low-fat cottage cheese with herbs, lean meat cutlets cooked without oil and others.
Important! Supplement protein dishes with your favorite vegetables and get a balanced, healthy dinner.
Dinner after training
It happens that the workout takes place in the evening, so a standard post-workout meal that includes quickly digestible carbohydrates is not suitable for dinner.
Immediately after an evening workout, you can drink a glass of protein shake, and upon arriving home, you are allowed to eat a dish consisting mainly of vegetables and protein. If you feel very hungry, you can add a small amount of buckwheat or brown rice.
Dinner for athletes
Dinner for athletes should consist exclusively of protein foods. Eating should help fill the calorie deficit that has formed due to physical activity. And also provide the right amount of amino acids for muscle growth.
For dinner, you can eat any combination of the following foods:
- Boiled chicken, beef and other dietary meats;
- Sea fish;
- Eggs;
- Hard cheese;
- Cottage cheese, milk, yogurt or kefir.
Dinner may not be your last meal; before bed, you can drink a protein shake to further enrich your body with amino acids.
What to exclude
A healthy dinner should not include carbohydrates, because in the evening glucose is poorly processed by the body and can be stored in fat. For this reason, do not eat dinner:
- fruits;
- dried fruits;
- sandwiches;
- buns;
- cakes;
- flour products;
- sweets.
In the evening you also need to say “no”:
- potatoes;
- carrots;
- beets;
- corn;
- porridges, especially rice ones.
Fried foods are also undesirable as heavy foods that are bad for the gallbladder, liver, and pancreas. Fried meat is especially poorly digestible, since the enzymes for its digestion are used up during the day.
The combination of meat and flour in the form of, for example, dumplings, dumplings, and baked goods is doubly difficult.
Dinner for weight loss
The easiest dinner option. To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit, and the body will make up for it from the existing reserves on the body.
When preparing dinner for yourself in this case, you can take a simple version of a balanced healthy dinner and slightly reduce the portion. Leave only a third of the serving for protein, and fill the rest with vegetables. The calorie content of a weight loss dinner should be no more than 300-350 calories.
After eating, to definitely avoid excess weight, do something active. This could be a short walk before bed or light yoga.
And to make sure you don’t overeat, you can prepare yourself a light salad for dinner. Read about delicious salad options below.
