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The saying goes that abs are made in the kitchen, and as this is true, it’s important to be cooking nutrient dense, balanced meals which will help fuel both your body and your day. It’s well known that a healthy meal for weight loss will include a protein, carb, and fat source which will offer ample energy and keep you satiated after eating, but there are small mistakes you can make in the kitchen which could sabotage the nutritional value of your meals and inadvertently make it more difficult to lose weight.
If you’ve been cooking healthy meals and exercising but are still not seeing the benefit of your balanced diet, there’s one mistake that experts agree may be the root cause of your weight loss plateau.
While the main ingredients you choose to cook with primarily dictate the health value of your meal, what you cook your food in can add sneaky calories which may negate the health benefits of your dish. “Many will make a dietary change, removing fatty foods and carbs from their diet, but will continue to cook in a pan greased with butter or heavy oils,” warns Anthony Puopolo, Chief Medical Officer at RexMD.
“This is continuing to introduce large amounts of fats with your foods, even if the foods are not fatty,” he adds. Fats are an essential addition to any well balanced diet, but it’s more important to choose a high quality fat like avocado or nuts and seeds, rather than certain oils and butters to fill this space.
Not all cooking oils are bad for you, and in fact, experts really only note vegetable oil as being potentially harmful for the body as it often comes from a number of sources that aren’t ‘pure.’ That being said, cooking in excess amounts of olive oil or even avocado oil can add a tremendous number of calories to any dish, even though these oils are still considered healthy.
For context, one tablespoon of olive oil racks up an additional 120 calories within your meal, and if you aren’t measuring serving sizes, this can quickly increase the caloric value of your dinner. One way to ensure a healthier meal while still cooking with these oils is to measure your servings in order to be aware of how much you’re using.
None of this is to say that you should be eliminating fats from your diet in order to achieve the results you’ve been working towards, but rather to be more intentional about which oils you’re cooking with, and how much you’re using. At the end of the day, a balanced diet is still the cornerstone of healthy weight loss, but the details of your cooking matters, and adding an overload of butter or oil to any given recipe can sink the nutritional value of your dish and set you back from reaching your goals.
Always make sure to stick to olive, avocado, or even coconut oil when preparing your meals, and remember to measure your serving sizes before coating the pan. Veggies and other nutrient dense foods are always going to be intrinsically healthy, but they do become less so when overloaded with an excess of fat. In cutting back on oil and becoming more aware of the details of your meal, you’re setting yourself up for successful and healthy weight loss without depriving yourself or cutting out major food groups.
