Do you associate summer with a holiday and beautiful weather? It’s also a time when you can enjoy the greatest selection of fresh vegetables and fruit, so it seems like the perfect time to change your eating habits. But in summer there are also many temptations such as ice cream, sweet cooling drinks or barbecues with greasy food and alcohol.
Even seemingly healthy food such as fruit, when consumed in excess, can do harm. So how can you enjoy this special period of the year while maintaining a healthy diet and a slim figure?
The best summer fruits
Do you take care of them every time they start appearing in shops and bazaars? I guess so does everybody! After all, the season is short and you have to enjoy it. Of course you can enjoy the taste of summer fruits (besides being delicious, they are also healthy), but as in any case, moderation and common sense are advisable here, especially if you are losing weight.
Too much fruit in your diet increases its calories (healthy products also have calories!), and also significantly increases the amount of sugar in your diet, which is not advisable even if it is natural sugar. Remember that there should be less fruit than vegetables in a healthy diet, which does not mean that you should avoid them.
Above all, do not replace your meals with them. Eating strawberries all day long is not very sensible. It’s better to combine them in 1-2 full-fledged meals, which also contain protein, fat and complex carbohydrates. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blueberries are perfect as an addition to your morning porridge.
For a snack you can take a fruit cocktail based on kefir or yoghurt or just a portion of fruit with nuts. Fruit such as watermelon, melon, strawberries can also be combined with lettuce, spinach, rocket and aromatic cheese to make an interesting salad. If you don’t have an idea for dietary meals, consider dietary catering. Warsaw and other big cities offer a lot of choice and everyone will find something for themselves.
A full vegetable season
Summer is also a real wealth of fresh vegetables. Some of them can be bought all year round – imported from abroad or frozen, but it is now that they have the fullest taste. Vegetables should form the basis of your diet, so now you can use them at will. To fully enjoy their taste, simply steam them and serve them to dinner.
You can prepare a casserole made from young potatoes, broccoli and asparagus beans. Use radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, chives and dill to make a refreshing salad with yoghurt or cottage cheese, which you can spread on whole-grain bread. Red peppers, zucchini and aubergines will represent vegetables worthily on the grill grill. A bean salad or roasted cauliflower will tempt even the biggest amateur of the greasy neck.
A simple and quick proposition for dinner is, for example, cream soup using young carrots, asparagus, broccoli or pepper. Let’s not forget about vegetable preserves. Summer is the time of cucumbers and silage from delicate young vegetables such as young cabbage or brussels sprouts.
It’s also a good time to put the nutritional values of summer crops in jars in the form of tomato puree and fruit jams (look for recipes where the amount of added sugar is minimal), such as strawberries, apricots, plums or berries.
A healthy diet for cooling
In summer we usually feel like products that are juicy, have a refreshing taste and let us cool down. Don’t get caught up in the trap of eating ice cream every day or drinking sweet drinks that smile at you from the frozen shop fridges. Above all, remember that the absolute basis when it comes to satisfying your thirst is water. If you want to give it a delicate taste, you can add lemon slices, a few sliced strawberries or mint leaves to it. Avoid buying flavoured waters – unfortunately, they are just a sweetened drink.
A little refreshment in your diet will also be introduced by chilled fruit cocktails – but remember that this is not a drink you can drink all day long, but more of a snack, for example for your second breakfast. You’re followed by ice cream? You can make them yourself from healthy products. Mix thoroughly frozen fruit with Greek yoghurt and place in the freezer. In the summer, a cooler made from kefir or yoghurt will also be great for any meal.