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Losing Weight With Ginger: What is Behind it?

Losing weight with ginger is just one of the many effects that the healthy root is said to have. We have summarized for you what is involved and the results of studies.

Various foods are said to help you lose weight – including ginger. The hot tuber is known for its healthy effect on the human organism. The influence on our digestion is also not new. In traditional Ayurvedic nutrition, ginger is said to stimulate the digestive fire (Agni).

In this article you will find out whether losing weight with ginger works, how the tuber affects our metabolism and what you should pay attention to.

Losing weight with ginger: the study situation

Numerous studies have looked at the effects of ginger on our digestion and metabolism to find out if losing weight with ginger is possible. The pungent substances contained are primarily responsible for the effect on our digestion. We have compiled the results of the studies for you:
A superordinate study from 2019 evaluated data from previous studies with overweight participants and came to the following conclusions:
Ginger can successfully help reduce body weight and has had a positive effect on the waist-to-hip ratio.
Ginger also lowers blood sugar levels. As a result, the body uses the fat reserves more quickly to generate energy.
In addition, the tuber increased the healthy HDL cholesterol in the blood.
However, not all studies come to the same conclusion. Another study from 2012 found no significant effect of ginger on body weight. On the other hand, ginger was able to reduce the appetite of the participants.
A pilot study of overweight men also found that ginger curbs appetite and increases satiety.
Another study in 24 healthy volunteers found that taking ginger before a meal stimulates digestion and causes food to be digested faster. This effect also relieves digestive problems, such as bloating.
Examination of the blood lipid levels of a double-blind clinical study with 85 subjects showed that the LDL cholesterol levels of the participants treated with ginger decreased significantly.
This effect could be valuable for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in the future. A 2017 study involving 45 diabetic patients showed that ginger has a positive effect on blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Losing weight with ginger: our conclusion

Losing weight with ginger alone is not possible. For this, ginger would either have to prevent nutrient absorption or significantly increase consumption. However, there is no scientific evidence for this. The healthy tuber cannot replace a balanced diet and sufficient exercise. However, the effects of ginger can help you lose weight.

So you can definitely benefit from the healthy effects of ginger. You don’t have to eat a lot of the spicy tuber for this. In the studies mentioned, one to three grams of ginger were used daily for several weeks.

It is also worth including ginger in your diet because of its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. You have countless options:
To get your metabolism going in the morning, you can prepare ginger water or ginger tea. This way you don’t take in any extra calories.
Golden milk, a popular drink from Ayurvedic nutrition, is also a great way to eat fresh ginger.
You can also use ginger to flavor your dishes. The spicy note of ginger refines soups, stews or curries. How about carrot and ginger soup, for example?
Tip: Other herbal remedies such as cinnamon, cumin or apple cider vinegar can also help you lose weight.

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Losing Weight Vegan: What You Should Pay Attention to

You can be vegan for many different reasons – animal welfare, environmental protection, health and also the desire to lose a few pounds can be a motivation. But do you really lose weight with a vegan diet? How does it work and what should you pay attention to?

Can you lose weight on a vegan diet?

Yes, you can lose weight with a vegan diet – but there is no guarantee. Because theoretically you can lose weight with any diet – if you don’t just eat chocolate, chips, cola and ready meals.

But the vegan diet has clear advantages: It often includes a diverse and varied selection of vegetables, legumes, fruit, cereals and whole grain products, nuts, seeds and vegetable oils. A study showed: A vegan diet could mean 8.1 million fewer deaths per year. According to the researchers, more than half of these avoided deaths could be attributed to reduced consumption of red meat (beef, pork, sheep, goat) and about a quarter to increased fruit and vegetable consumption.

In addition, vegans often live healthier lives in general: They smoke less often, drink less alcohol and exercise more. To what extent diet is decisive here, or whether healthy people generally opt for a vegan diet more often, is not known exactly.

Losing weight vegan: what do you have to pay attention to?

Long-time vegans know their way around and know what to look out for. But if you are just starting out on a vegan diet, you should consider a few things. Some nutrients are not included in a vegan diet, or only when you are familiar with them. These include vitamin B12, vitamin B2, vitamin D, protein, calcium, iron, iodine, zinc, selenium and omega-3 fatty acids.

With the exception of vitamin B12 – which vegans should supplement or take in with the help of fortified toothpaste – it is possible to absorb these nutrients with a balanced, varied diet. However, one should consciously ensure that all nutrients are present in the diet.

The vegan nutrition poster or the vegan nutrition pyramid from the animal rights organization Peta can be helpful. In our article “Vitamins from plant sources”, you can find out which vitamins are in which vegan foods. A regular medical blood test is also useful, it shows possible deficiency situations.

Losing weight vegan: The energy balance is crucial

If you want to lose weight – whether vegan or not – you have to use more energy than you take in. That doesn’t mean you have to waste your time counting calories and starving yourself from now on. It often helps to gradually change small things and slowly strive for a healthier lifestyle.

How much energy you use varies from person to person and depends on body weight, body composition, gender, age, health, the temperature around us and, crucially, physical activity. There is little you can do to change most of these things – except for your physical activity. This means that if you want to lose weight, you have to move.

Nothing happens without movement

You don’t have to exercise five days a week – it’s often the small things that can make a big difference: climb the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator, walk or bike short distances, and go for a short walk during your lunch break .

Yes, even in winter. Remember, temperature also plays a role in energy consumption. The colder it is outside, the more energy your body uses to keep you warm. In addition, the cold air – and if you’re lucky, a few rays of winter sun (vitamin D) – is good for your health.

Try to integrate regular physical activity into your everyday life: maybe you like swimming, running, cycling, dancing or enjoy a team sport? Whatever your sport, plan time for it every week. If you have doubts about going through with it, then arrange to meet up with friends – you can motivate each other.

What am I actually eating?

Let’s get to the energy you absorb. It can clearly be influenced by your diet. And here, too, it is small steps that can make a big difference. A good way to find out where to start is by keeping a food journal (there are good food journal apps out there now too).

If you regularly write down what you eat, you’ll probably find a few things you can work on. Don’t try to eat as little as possible – it is especially important for vegans to eat enough. Be careful what foods you eat.

Clean eating: not just a trend

Eat as clean as possible, i.e. mainly unprocessed food! There are now plenty of finished products with too much salt and additives for vegans too. It’s better to ignore them and try to eat as much fresh and unprocessed food as possible: lots of things can be conjured up from vegetables, fruit, legumes, seeds, grains and nuts.

How about a homemade spread on freshly baked bread with hemp milk, almond milk or a smoothie and an energy ball for dessert? Vegan food accounts on Instagram offer a good source of inspiration.

Carbohydrates? Yes, but whole grain

Carbohydrates make you fat? Not necessarily. If you only eat croissants, white bread and sugar, you certainly won’t lose any pounds. But if you eat foods that have complex carbohydrates in them — like cereal, bran, beans, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, brown rice, potatoes, vegetables, or soy products — your body will take longer to digest, your blood sugar won’t spike as much, and you will stay full longer. Also read the article on proper nutrition in the following box:

Healthy snacks instead of Cheat Day

Cheat Day is a trend that is particularly widespread on social networks and on YouTube: starving six days a week – and on one day pizza, fries, cola, chocolate, ice cream (and everything else that you have forbidden yourself) in cram yourself in. Such regular, planned binge eating is not a good idea.

It’s better to treat yourself to something every now and then. Delicious homemade brownies made from kidney beans, energy balls or homemade Nutella. The advantage of making it yourself: You can decide for yourself how much sugar you use.

Drink lots and lots!

In addition to food, drinks also play a role in weight loss. A very simple rule of thumb is: drink water, and drink enough water so that you never feel thirsty. With sweet drinks such as cola, sprite, iced tea, but also with juice and ready-made juice spritzers, you absorb unnecessary energy, so you should avoid these and drink water instead. You can drink the tap water in Germany without hesitation. If you can’t go without flavor, spice up your water with ginger, cucumber, herbs, or lemon.

Listen to yourself: intuition and mindfulness

What does this esoteric stuff have to do with losing weight, you might be wondering. Probably more than you think. Before you just start eating at the next meal, be careful and listen to yourself: Are you hungry or just hungry? Are you stressed or relaxed? Take your time to eat and be aware of your body. Celebrate the food and present it beautifully. Eating is a beautiful thing and we want it to stay that way for you. When you feel full, stop eating.

Incidentally, stress and weight are often linked: while some people hardly eat at all during stressful times, others stuff themselves with sugar and fat. Make sure to consciously relax every now and again in your everyday life, even short units – ten minutes after getting up, during your lunch break or just before going to bed – can help to lower your stress level.

Vegan lose weight with patience

Conclusion: Don’t think of the vegan diet as a diet that can help you lose a lot of pounds in a short period of time. It will not work. As soon as you eat like before, you have the pounds back on your hips. Instead, try to see your diet change as something long-term and use it! Try out new recipes, get inspired and discover the diversity of vegan nutrition. Give yourself and your body time to adjust, and don’t freak out about it.

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Low-carb Diet: How Does It Work, Is It Useful for Losing Weight?

Every year, from New Year’s Day to Easter, you hear new and old suggestions on how best to implement the good intention of “finally losing weight” – the low-carb diet is a classic. Right?

To put it simply, the low-carb diet is about consuming fewer carbohydrates, as these are considered “fatty foods”. Instead, protein meals are supposed to make the body believe it is hungry and force it to burn fat.

Depending on the low-carb nutrition plan, one to all meals a day should be prepared with as few carbohydrates as possible. As a result, the pounds should tumble. That doesn’t happen, because no diet can do it quickly and easily. Losing weight with low carb is very possible – but only if you change your diet in the long term and don’t shy away from more sport and exercise.

Everyone can get in – something with these 5 low-carb recipes that focus on protein. In the supermarket there is also a growing number of industrial foods and cookbooks, from low-carb bread to low-carb pasta and low-carb pizza, everything is there. Because you can make money with diets and corresponding products.

But is all this really necessary? So we took a closer look at the nutrition trend.

Low-carb diet: only for healthy people

Basically, all metabolic processes and quantity recommendations in this article refer to healthy people. For example, someone who already suffers from type II diabetes due to being overweight has a different metabolism and therefore needs different nutritional recommendations.

Low Carb: Diet without carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are basically a very good source of energy, which benefits our muscles and brain. If you eat the right carbohydrates in the right amount, you won’t get fat. Carbohydrates can keep you full for a long time and ensure, among other things, that the body forms the so-called happiness hormone serotonin.

If you always eat enough carbohydrates, you will also do something good for your soul: you will become more resistant to stress, keep your mood and have a lower risk of developing depression. Because: Perhaps you have already noticed that many people are in a bad mood during a diet and when losing weight, are more easily stressed and do not seem happy.

There are two different types of carbohydrates:

complex carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, grain products, muesli …), i.e. starch products, and
simple carbs (fruit, candy, cookies…), meaning things with sugar
The body converts both types of carbohydrates into glucose, but at different rates. Complex carbohydrates are absorbed into the blood more slowly in the form of glucose than simple carbohydrates. Prerequisite for a long-term low-carb diet: at least one meal per day contains complex carbohydrates.

It’s not like complex carbohydrates are any better for losing weight. But the simple carbohydrates definitely carry the risk of weight gain.

Eating carbohydrates raises blood sugar levels, which leads to insulin release. Insulin is a metabolic hormone that ensures that the glucose from the meal is also transported into the cells and stored as glycogen. As long as this process is going on, the body can’t get to its fat deposits, and therefore your love handles can’t get to the collar either.

The consumption of carbohydrates is therefore unproblematic as long as you allow the body time between meals to burn up the nutrients transported into the cells. During this time, for example, you should not eat any more carbohydrates and also refrain from anything else that would raise the insulin level again, such as consuming high-calorie drinks or snacks.

Carbohydrates in themselves are neither unhealthy nor bad, but an important nutrient for muscles, brain and psyche! The clever low-carb diet is less about losing weight and more about not gaining weight through the wrong carbohydrates thanks to a sensible change in diet.

Is protein better than carbs for weight loss?

Of course, you also need protein, and every balanced meal includes a source of protein. Also read: Vegetable protein: These foods provide a lot of protein. The protein is broken down into amino acids in the body, which do not increase the blood sugar level and therefore do not initially lead to insulin release.

However, a few of these amino acids cause the body to start producing glycogen itself. What is intended as an “emergency program” in order to still have energy in times of hunger no longer makes sense in modern everyday life, but it nevertheless leads to an increase in blood sugar levels and thus to a release of insulin. However, this only happens after about six to eight hours.

A meal that contains no carbohydrates and consists only of protein only leads to an interruption in fat burning after many hours due to the delayed release of insulin. If you avoid carbohydrates, you can give your body at least six hours more time to burn fat. That’s why the low-carb diet is so often recommended for weight loss.

Does the low carb diet really work?

First of all: No “diet” works in the long term – unless you also follow this diet in the long term. A change in eating habits is therefore better than a short-term diet. And they can very well include aspects of a low-carb diet.

Ideally, with a low-carb diet, one or two of the three meals a day are prepared according to low-carb. If possible, such a meal contains a lot of protein, no carbohydrates and only a little high-quality vegetable fat in order to avoid an increase in insulin levels and the associated interruption in fat burning.

However, it is important not to eat or drink anything between meals, which increases the blood sugar level and thus leads to the release of insulin. Snacks, fruit, coffee with milk and other solid or liquid carbohydrates between meals are completely taboo.

The low-carb diet allows snacks, but these are generally not recommended because they train the wrong eating habits with snacks between meals.

Because protein also leads to a (delayed) insulin release, it makes sense to fill the time of this insulin release with a carbohydrate-rich meal in order to make at least a minimum of it available to the muscles, brain and psyche. A balanced, mixed-food meal with at least 50 percent complex carbohydrates (preferably whole grain) is advisable here.

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