5 tips to maintain your vitamin and mineral intake on a restricted-calorie diet
06/17/2021 / By Tonie Benally / Comments
5 tips to maintain your vitamin and mineral intake on a restricted-calorie diet

Trying to lose weight by going on a restricted-calorie diet can help you lessen your risk of certain health problems. But it can also leave you deficient in important vitamins and minerals.

Around 2 million adults around the world are overweight, and around 650 million are obese. This is a problem as it means that a large number of people are at risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and early death.

If you’re overweight, you may be thinking of starting a weight loss plan to improve your well-being. But going on a strict diet to restrict your daily calorie intake can also pose challenges to your health. By doing so, you may not be able to get all of the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

To avoid losing out on essential vitamins and minerals while on a restricted-calorie diet, keep these five tips in mind.

1. Know what your weight loss plan is depriving you of

Different diets and weight loss plans will provide or deprive you of different nutrients. As such, it’s important to understand exactly what these are depriving you of.

  • High fat, low-carb diets – These diets, which include the keto diet, are quite popular. They generally involve limiting your carbohydrate intake so your body starts burning fat. But these can often leave you lacking in vitamins A, E or B6. They can also leave you lacking in iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, thiamin and folate as well.
  • Moderate-fat diets – These are designed to provide you with a greater range of food choices to allow for nutritional adequacy and compliance. That said, these diets can still leave you lacking in iron, magnesium, and calcium, as well as vitamin B12 and zinc.
  • Very low-fat diets – These are more traditional diets that reduce the amount of fatty foods you consume. These can often leave you without the zinc, vitamin E and vitamin B12 that you need.

Once you know what you may be missing out on, it’ll be easier for you to figure out how to make up for these missing nutrients.

2. Track what you eat

For a better idea of exactly what nutrients you’re consuming and what you’re missing out on, you should make it a habit to check the actual nutritional content of the food your eating. The simplest way to do this is to read nutrition labels on the food that you buy from the grocery store or farmers’ market.

In addition, there are quite a few apps that you can use to track what you eat. But take note that some of these may gather more data than you may be comfortable with sharing, so choose wisely.

3. Know what foods to eat

Knowing what vitamins and minerals you’re missing out on is just the first step. You also need to be aware of what you should eat to make up for these. For example, if you’re missing out on vitamin A, then try eating more carrots, eggs or cantaloupes, or drinking more milk. If it’s vitamin E that you need, try avocados, whole grains, seeds, nuts and leafy greens.

Meanwhile, for minerals, if you’re lacking in calcium, try taking more dairy products, broccoli, sardines and leafy greens are excellent sources of calcium. If it’s potassium you need, go for bananas, nuts, fish, spinach or raisins. Finally, if magnesium is what you’re lacking, try peas, almonds, black beans and spinach.

4. Try supplements

Supplements are another way you can make up for missing vitamins and minerals. While they’re no substitute for a healthy diet, they’re still quite useful if you’re having trouble finding good, clean sources of certain foods that you need. Just be sure to consult with your healthcare professional before taking any supplements.

5. Understand that weight loss is a gradual process

Healthy, sustainable weight loss is not a quick fix, but a gradual process. This means that you shouldn’t expect big results overnight. If you try to lose weight too fast by cutting out more food, you’ll just end up depriving yourself of essential vitamins and minerals even more.

It takes a daily deficit of about 500 calories just to lose around half a kilogram to one kilogram (1.1 to 2.2 pounds) a week. With this in mind, don’t sweat it if you’re only losing a small amount of weight. It’s more important to keep yourself healthy in the long run.

Reducing the calories that you consume is one way to lose weight and improve your overall health. Just make sure that you do it in a manner that doesn’t deprive you of essential vitamins and minerals. If you feel like you’re not getting the vitamins and minerals you need, just refer to the five tips listed above and, more importantly, consult with a healthcare professional.

Sources include:

SteadyHealth.com

Healthline.com

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