What to eat for dinner when losing weight - the correct menu with recipes and allowed low-calorie foods

What is weight loss

Reducing the calorie intake to almost zero, eating greens and drinking kefir is the path to erosive changes in the gastrointestinal mucosa, but not body correction, although weight may go away, but only water will be lost. Proper weight loss means burning fat reserves, i.e. effects on body quality dependent on nutritional quality. It is carried out by reducing the number of calories that a person should consume, but within reasonable limits. Giving food to the enemy in the evening, as the proverb says, is not worth it - the damage to digestion is too great: you just need to find out what it is - the right dinner for those losing weight.

What to eat for dinner to lose weight

Food can help burn body fat if it has the so-called. “zero” calorie content. This concept does not mean a literal 0 kcal, but the predominance of the amount of effort that the body will make to process it and obtain energy over the number of calories it contains. These foods can help you lose weight, but they're not the only foods you should eat for dinner to lose weight. The evening meal, according to doctors, must include very nutritious foods, but low in calories. These are mainly light proteins, but they are not always useful.

Dinner with proper nutrition for weight loss should include one of the following products:

• greens (fiber and low calorie);
• vegetables (especially cruciferous vegetables, i.e. cabbage), preferably fresh;
• spices (will accelerate metabolic processes).

What is not recommended for dinner?

In the evening, food should be nutritious, but light. To lose weight while maintaining a healthy and beautiful body, exclude legumes, cabbage and other foods that cause bloating and complicate night digestion from the dinner menu. In the evening, it is not recommended to eat foods fried in oil, deep-fried, or treats rich in fats, sugar, and other “fast” carbohydrates - sweet baked goods, flour and confectionery products. Excludes:

• starchy dishes - potatoes, pasta, polished rice, couscous;
• fruits with a high sugar content - grapes, bananas, peaches, figs, melon (it has a diuretic effect, you should not eat it at night);
• industrial sweet cheeses, curds and yoghurts;
• dried fruits and nuts in large portions - they are too high in calories, eat them little by little for dinner;
• red meat - it will increase the amount of adrenaline and interfere with sleep;
• smoked, salty foods - they retain water, in the morning the face will become swollen;
• fatty meat and poultry (goose, duck);
• soda, processed foods and fast food.

The main principles of proper dinner

Breakfast and lunch raise significantly fewer questions than an evening meal, since nutritionists vying with each other to repeat that you should not overload the body before going to bed. To dig a little deeper and try to formulate an approximate filling of a plate of food, the following basic principles help:

• Try to eat 25-30% of your daily caloric intake in the evening.
• If possible, have 2 dinners - the last one will be 3 hours before bedtime, will be less than 10% of the daily calorie content of the menu and will be represented mainly by fermented milk drinks (ryazhenka, kefir, sourdough).
• The right dinner for weight loss is a reduced proportion of carbohydrates (simple carbohydrates are completely excluded) and the absence of high GI foods.
• You should not eat potatoes for dinner, just as you should not eat boiled beets and carrots in the evening if you hope to lose weight.
• If you really want to, take green fruits (or citrus fruits), because... the rest, when consumed for dinner, will interfere with weight loss.
• Do not overeat - the portion should fill you up, but not to the point of wanting to lie down and not move: imagine that after dinner you still need to jump. Can you? If the answer is yes, everything is fine.
• Do not mix cereals with protein at dinner (i.e. cook meat with herbs, not rice).
• If you have to drink alcohol, then only dry wine.
• The maximum serving of animal protein is 100 grams.
• Avoid sweets, sources of caffeine, and fatty/smoked meats for dinner.

The importance of proper dinner when losing weight

A proper dinner for weight loss is as important as your morning and afternoon meals. If you eat high-calorie foods before bed, your stomach, sides and thighs will soon increase in volume.

Diet dinner for weight loss

To cope with extra pounds, you should follow simple tips:

• Before going to bed, you should not eat more than 250 grams of food;
• It is advisable to have dinner three hours before going to bed;
• the total calorie content of the dish should not exceed 300 kcal;
• in the evening you should give up flour, sweets, fried foods and sauces, as they overload the digestive organs;
• choose foods that contain a minimum of carbohydrates;
• for dinner you can eat green fruits or citrus fruits, since other options interfere with weight loss;
• do not mix cereals with protein, because such a combination of components creates a feeling of heaviness.

If you take these rules into account, a light dinner for weight loss will help normalize metabolic processes. Thanks to this, fat deposits will begin to be burned more actively.

What foods can you eat in the evening?

This question is of particular relevance for people attending events after work: it is difficult to completely refuse food here, it may look disrespectful, so you have to urgently decide which of the proposed ones will harm your figure to the least extent. For this situation, nutritionists advise giving preference to red wine and hard cheese. The ideal option is Parmesan and its “relatives”, i.e. types that are aged for a long time (from a year): they have low fat content and few carbohydrates.

As a classic dinner in the evening, you can eat foods that are low in calories and fat:

• boiled eggs (use without yolk);
• seafood;
• lean fish - mackerel, pollock, flounder;
• poultry meat;
• herbal teas;
• vegetables (preference for zucchini, cabbage, celery, pumpkin);
• legumes;
• hard cheese or Tofu;
• kiwi, apples, dried apricots, pineapple, prunes;
• fermented milk products;
• maybe a little honey;
• juices from vegetables/fruits that are made at home (i.e. no additives);
• Nuts and seeds are allowed in minimal portions for dinner - they have a high calorie content, but are very filling.

How to cook diet meals

In the matter of losing weight, a significant role is played not only by what to eat for dinner when losing weight, but also by how it is prepared. All efforts to reduce the calorie content of the ingredients used are immediately undone by frying in oil. But this does not mean that people on a diet are doomed to eat tasteless, bland food. For those who want to get rid of extra pounds, cooking offers the following cooking methods:

• Boiling. A traditional dietetic method that does not affect calorie content at all. A light dinner for weight loss can consist of boiled vegetables, meat or fish. However, if you like first courses, diet soup is also a good option for the evening.

• Steaming. It will also not add calories to the finished dish, but in return it will retain more flavor, which will not be partially given to the broth. If you don't have a steamer, no problem, just place a colander over a pan of boiling water and cover with a lid.

• Baking. It’s not a troublesome method, because all you have to do is wrap the food in foil or a sleeve, after which you don’t even have to wash the dishes.

Cook delicious!

Before baking, marinate the meat in lemon juice or kefir. The acid they contain will partially dissolve the muscle fibers, and the finished dish will be softer. A couple of cloves of garlic will add a delicious aroma to your culinary masterpiece.

• BBQ or grill. Fish, meat or vegetables cooked over an open fire are also suitable for the diet. Well, let everyone eat fatty kebab, but you will have slender legs.

photo from www.youtube.com

• Frying. Yes, fried foods can also be a low-calorie dinner for weight loss. Get a non-stick grill pan and cook vegetables on it without any oil. They, of course, will not acquire the aroma of a fire, but in appearance and taste they will not be inferior to those prepared at a picnic.

• No heat treatment. Of course, this technique is only suitable for vegetables and dairy products. Vegetables can be served simply chopped or in the form of salads, dressed with lemon juice and soy sauce.

As you can see, the choice of what is the best dinner to lose weight is really extensive, and for those who have creative culinary thinking or simply enough experience, this information is quite enough for further action. But if you prefer to follow clear recipes, or simply need inspiration on what to cook for dinner to lose weight, you will find recipes with photos in the next section of the article.

Dinner options

The choice of products for preparing an evening meal is completely determined by whether you will have a load today, or have already had it, or whether you lead a completely sedentary lifestyle. You will have to decide what you can eat, taking into account the calories you have already eaten, and even after answering the question of when you will go to bed. Universal dinner options, according to a number of nutritionists, are as follows:

• Cottage cheese casserole (only egg whites + low-fat cottage cheese, you can add a few sour berries) and natural yogurt.
• A serving of kefir or fermented baked milk (up to 500 ml), but it is better to leave this option for the second dinner, which is closer to bedtime.
• Smoothies (preferably vegetable ones, since fruits have a higher percentage of sugars that are dangerous for weight loss).
• Fish and seafood prepared without additional fats - you can bake, stew, boil, but do not fry. Juices, wine, and soy sauce are suitable for marinade.
• Stewed mushrooms.
• Turkey/chicken cutlets or meatballs that were baked in the oven or steamed.
• Omelet, but with a minimum of yolks or without them, supplemented with vegetables.
• Boiled chickpeas or lentils with stewed tomatoes, zucchini and a bunch of herbs.

Protein

Nutritionists are ready to advise this option for evening food only to people who have physical activity during the day. Then the protein will be used to build muscles, and will not be converted into fats, preventing you from losing weight. However, there are certain caveats here: a healthy protein dinner is a small (!) portion of boiled or steamed poultry or fish (the norm is up to 100 grams), and lettuce, dill or another type of greens. You can take a cucumber if you don't like animal protein without plant foods.

Healthy foods for dinner and how to prepare them

The essence of the evening meal is to prepare the body for night rest, optimizing the metabolic process, which does not stop during sleep. It is recommended not to fry dishes for dinner, but to bake, stew or steam (in a double boiler, in a water bath). It is important to include fiber in your meals, which will cleanse the gastrointestinal tract of decay products and “garbage” accumulated during the day. It is found in vegetables, so in the evening it is useful to eat cucumbers, zucchini and zucchini, tomatoes, beets, corn - almost everything except potatoes.

At night, the body intensively “builds” muscle tissue, and it needs proteins. “Building material” suitable for dinner is lean meat and poultry (rabbit, chicken or turkey, veal), eggs, cheese and tofu as a protein supplement. The optimal main dish for the evening is fish or seafood. The abundance of phosphorus, omega acids, iodine and other nutrients will be beneficial, and easy digestibility will not let you feel heaviness in the stomach. Tuna, pink salmon, cod, haddock, trout, hake and other low- and moderate-fat fish are suitable. The best seafood options are mussels, squid, shrimp and scallops.

A few additional recommendations:

• the correct end to dinner is sour and moderately sweet berries and fruits (apples, pears, citrus fruits, pineapple, kiwi);
• It is useful to include cottage cheese in your dinner, which is rich in calcium and contains casein “long” protein - it is required for the restoration of muscle tissue;
• You can season and complement dishes with fermented milk products - yogurt, low-fat kefir, natural yogurt without additives;
• fresh herbs, dry bran, flax or chia seeds will improve digestion;
• for vegetarians, animal protein is replaced with peas, lentils, and beans;
• with an active lifestyle, intense training, physical activity, “slow” carbohydrates are introduced into the evening diet - whole grain bread, buckwheat, brown rice, and so on.

Light dinner for weight loss

Are you not exposed to physical activity, do you have an office job, don’t go for walks, and do you go to bed early? A delicious light dinner for weight loss in your case will exclude meat, because... it will not be digested and will poison the body, but fish (low-fat types) can. Seafood is also suitable for dinner. A serving of such protein should be about 50 g, and the rest of the plate will be taken up by vegetables. An alternative for losing weight can be an omelet (if you don’t value sea creatures), but always with products of plant origin.

Easy dinner recipes

Cheese casserole

• Time: 60 minutes.
• BJU (per 100 g): 14/3/1.5.
• Calorie content: 93 kcal/100 g

Dietary flourless cottage cheese casserole can be included in a protein dinner. To improve the appearance of the dish, brush the surface with egg yolk 10 minutes before cooking.

Ingredients:

• eggs – 2 pcs.;
• low-fat cottage cheese – 280 g;
• kefir – 30 ml;
• vanillin - tsp;
• sweetener – 10 tablets.

Cooking method:

1. Dissolve the sweetener in boiling water (50 g).
2. Break the eggs, mix with cottage cheese, adding kefir.
3. Add dissolved sugar substitute and vanillin to the curd mass, stir or beat using a mixer.
4. Place the dough in a baking dish and smooth it out.
5. Bake the dish for 35–40 minutes in an oven heated to 180° C.

Turkey baked with vegetables

• Time: 70–80 minutes.
• BJU (per 100 g): 10/0.5/5.5.
• Calorie content: 63 kcal/100 g

Dishes with minimal fat content do not overload the stomach and promote weight loss. Turkey in the recipe can be replaced with chicken, lean fish or any seafood.

Ingredients:

• turkey fillet – 150 g;
• green beans – 100 g;
• onion – 50 g;
• broccoli cabbage – 100 g;
• garlic – 4 cloves;
• low-fat kefir – 30 ml.

Cooking method:

1. Cut the turkey into small cubes.
2. Peel the onion and chop it into half rings.
3. Cut large broccoli florets in half.
4. Peel the garlic cloves, chop them, stir with kefir.
5. Place the prepared products in a baking dish, stir them, add green beans, pour kefir and garlic over the vegetables.
6. Bake the dish for 50 minutes at 170° C, covering the dish with perforated foil.

Dietary radish salad

• Time: 30–40 minutes.
• BJU (per 100 g): 3.2/2/2.5.
• Calorie content: 42 kcal/100 g

A light salad satisfies hunger for a short time, saturating the body with vitamins C, E, and group B. The composition of the dish is balanced, and the components are well absorbed.

Ingredients:

• radish – 100 g;
• egg – 1 pc.;
• cucumber – 100 g;
• low-fat kefir – 15 ml;
• dill – 5 g;
• green onions – 10 g;
• leaf lettuce – 30 g.

Cooking method:

1. Boil the eggs hard and immediately transfer them to ice water. Peel the shell, cut the white into cubes, set aside the yolk.
2. Wash the cucumber and radish, cut into slices.
3. Rinse the lettuce leaves and cut into checkers.
4. Wash the dill and green onions and chop finely.
5. Add chopped herbs and yolk to kefir. Stir the dressing.
6. Combine all ingredients, add dressing.

Dinner after training

The main requirement for nutrition after exercise, if you are aiming to lose weight by burning fat, is to create a “window” between it and food. Dinner after training for weight loss should be done 1.5 hours later, so that the calories you just ate are not used to replenish energy. Protein becomes the center of your plate, so here all options for meat or fish compositions, seafood, and cottage cheese dishes are allowed, but without fat. It is desirable that all products be low-calorie, i.e. 150-200 kcal, no more, and was not accompanied by cereals.

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What can you drink in the evening to lose weight?

Proper nutrition in the evening also includes drinking healthy drinks. These include the following options:

• green tea or tea with various herbs, because black varieties of the drink must be abandoned;
• weak coffee without added sugar;
• water without gases, which promotes the active functioning of the digestive organs;
• dry red wine that has a positive effect on blood circulation.

All other drinks are strictly prohibited. If you really want to lose weight, don't be tempted by soda, beer and other favorite liquids.