The menu of the week to eat healthy

Planning what we eat during a whole week is not only the best way to eat healthy and balanced, but also a good ally of the line. However, it is important to know a few basics to be able to devise a pattern healthy.

The distribution of nutrients

To start planning a menu, you must first balance the nutrients. Basically, each person needs 50-60% of daily calories from carbohydrates, 20% of calories coming from protein and 20% of calories coming from fat.

In fact, the proportions may change depending on the objectives: longer needs proteins for example, athletes, as well as those who want to lose weight will make a small cut in fat and carbohydrates.

The first thing to consider is the number of daily meals to do during the day. In fact, skipping meals, or spend many hours on an empty stomach, it is not advisable to never, and because you can go to energy shortages needed to deal with daily activities, and because you can develop an appetite so strong that overdoing the next meal.

The ideal is to distribute the food in 4-5-6 meals a day, and the general rule is not to spend more than 5 hours to complete fasting. These meals should include a breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, snack, dinner and, for those too early dinner or needs to "pamper yourself" before going to sleep, a slight pre-bedtime snack.

How to plan a healthy menu?

Once established meals a day to do, you can give free rein to creativity.

But what you need to have complete nutrition? First of flour and cereals, even better if whole: then bread, pasta, rice, biscuits, rice cakes, crackers.

Then, again, there are proteins, which in the case of vegans are of vegetable origin only (for those who don't know, are soybeans, wheat, beans, chickpeas, lentils, dried fruit, flour, legumes), in the case of omnivore and vegetarian lacto-ovo come from animals (eggs and cheese for vegetarians, omnivores also meat and fish).

They must not forget the "good" fats, i.e. olive oil, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, oil of flax seed. Vitamins and minerals are found in varying amounts in all foods, but especially in fruits and vegetables, which are distributed in the famous as important five portions a day. And to drink? Best to avoid alcohol, consuming mainly water, herbal teas, centrifuged and fruit juices, taking with tea and coffee in moderation.

For breakfast, the ideal is to assume the vegetable milk, such as rice or soy, also in the case in which he had not vegans: in fact in the early morning this type of milk is very digestible, unlike the vaccine that can create some problems. So go-ahead to a soy yogurt cup with oats, bananas and nuts, all accompanied by an orange juice, or even a cup of soy milk or almond with cereals and / or biscuits.

For snack and snack, you should ideally refer to healthy snacks, such as fruit, centrifuged, dried fruit or toast with jam. These mini-meals should not contain too many calories, just so as not to burden the body and give it just the right sprint to get there without an excess of hunger the next meal.

Lunch should be a healthy mix of starchy foods, protein and vegetables: green light then, at first with pasta and vegetables, and a second as a dish of spinach and pine nuts, perhaps with the tofu with tomato sauce. Or, you can choose a single dish, like whole grains, beans and vegetables cooked.

Dinner can be similar to lunch, but decreasing slightly starchy foods (so if you eat for lunch 80 grams of pasta, limit yourself to dinner at 50 grams for example). Careful not to eat the bread if you also ate pasta, or take half portion of both: they are equivalent, so double the doses can only be detrimental to the number of calories to be introduced on a daily basis.

To season, always better to use the healthy and very Italian extra virgin olive oil, better still raw. But how to distribute the various dishes in a week? Simple: the proteins are taken as 'rolling': if you are vegetarian, for example, and you ate cheese on Monday for lunch, opt for dinner legumes and eggs the next day (being careful to limit as much as possible fats derived from cheese and eggs, by limiting the consumption of these foods to once a week in the case of eggs and twice in the case of cheese).

Omnivores should be careful to over-consumption of protein from meat, in addition to the harmful substances with which too often the animals are fed before becoming food, so watch both frequency than quantity. Vegans can alternate the classics to soya beans, the various derivatives of the same soy (soybeans, tempeh, and soy medallions) seitan (to avoid if you are celiac, because it is wheat gluten).

As for vegetables, not focus on a few varieties: there are many, so set your vegetables, baking it away in every way and in every possible way! Also, do not cook in the same way: If a cold pasta dish scheduled day, the next day you opt for a soup, or for a second with potatoes in abundance. The way in which foods are cooked is part of the so-called ' variety '.

Then sit at a table, and create a custom scheme of things that you like and that give you the smile not weigh you down, follow the rule of variety and rotation, and drafted two or three different weekly menus, alternating them.

Plan a healthy menu, what we must never forget

To plan a healthy menu with good results, we must not forget:

• Buy anything that was included in the weekly menu, so you do not find themselves without ingredients when cooking.

• Use of season foods, so that the meals are qualitatively better from a nutritional point of view.

• Vary your cooking methods, limiting fried foods to one or maximum twice a week.

• Cook two portions and freeze one, in order to facilitate our work for the next time and save time, energy and ... Gas!

• Check each day you need to eat the next day: That way you can address any missing ingredients.

With these tricks you can devise a pattern healthy, improving the quality of your diet, the time and also checking the economic cost.

Deliberately it not has been established in this article diet plan: food selection is basically personnel, and for that you prefer to give the 'indications whatsoever' on which each of you will give birth to a table always based on their tastes and their preferences, without forgetting the principles of health.