DASH DIET: THE CORRECT MENU TO LOSE WEIGHT BY FIGHTING HYPERTENSION

The Dash Diet, after having made the boom in the United States, has also exploded in Italy, thanks to its menus and its perfect diet for weight loss, with many healthy and tasty recipes. It is in fact a diet that allows at the same time to eliminate the belly and excess fat and to improve our state of health: it is specifically designed to combat hypertension, so much so that it has been elected for the third consecutive year as the healthiest diet in the world by a group of American doctors gathered in the US New & World Reports association.

Studied and developed by the famous Harvard University, it has a primary objective that it declares from its name: Dash stands for "Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension", which translated into Italian means "dietary approaches to put an end to" hypertension ". does it succeed? thanks to a low sodium menu.

Do you know what the miming diet is all about? If you are not yet aware of it, watch this video before continuing to read the article!

What is the Dash diet all about?

The Dash diet was originally created to help people with high blood pressure by reducing their daily salt intake; but the prevalence of balanced fruits, vegetables and proteins, upon which its recipes and weekly menus are based, has made this diet a great way to lose weight, really suitable for anyone.

The diet that the Dash diet proposes is not so different from a well-balanced Mediterranean diet, in which it is indicated to limit as much as possible the amount of salt, saturated fats and cholesterol, which constitute a real danger for our heart.

How to reduce the consumption of salt

Since one of the triggers of arterial hypertension is salt, a diet like the one provided by the Dash diet aims above all to radically reduce its consumption. But how to do it? Indeed, salt is what makes our diet tasty and, without it, we have the impression that food tastes nothing. However, there are alternatives with which to compensate for the lack of this dressing, such as:

Season the dishes with spices
Choose foods that are low in sodium
Prefer wholemeal pasta and bread
Do without sauces like mayonnaise, ketchup etc.
Definitely avoid cured meats
Rinse canned foods before consuming them
Check carefully the labels of the packaged products

The weekly menu: how does it work and what foods does it provide?

The Dash diet provides a weekly menu, for the first two weeks of the diet, the total elimination of fats and carbohydrates. For the first 14 days, therefore, you will have to reluctantly say goodbye momentarily to bread and pasta and settle for protein recipes, in order to awaken your metabolism as quickly as possible. It is no coincidence that it will be in this first phase that you will lose the most weight!

In the third week, then, you will have to reduce the starchy vegetables: this is the maintenance phase, in which it will be important not to regain weight and reduce the level of cholesterol and sugar in the blood.

The weekly menu must therefore focus on the following foods:

vegetables: tomato, carrots, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, pumpkin and fennel (rich in potassium).
Fruit: apricots, oranges, mandarins, peaches, pineapples, plums, cherries, strawberries.
Dried fruit: almonds, walnuts, oil seeds such as sunflower seeds.
Legu mi: all, but in particular lentils and beans (rich in magnesium).
Cereals, preferably wholemeal.
dairy products: semi-skimmed milk, low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheeses.
fish and white meat

Check out our gallery with all the foods recommended by the Dash diet:

The results and the benefits

In the first two weeks of the diet, following the weekly menu explained above, you can even lose a size, as well as have a considerable drop in blood cholesterol.

Generally speaking, this diet promises to lose around 2.5kg in the first few weeks and between 4.5kg and 16kg over two months.

The results, however, go far beyond weight loss: thanks to this diet we will fight hypertension and cardiovascular complications related to it, including the risk of heart attack.

Furthermore, decreasing sodium intake will be a cure-all against water retention, also reducing that annoying swelling that mainly affects legs and belly.

Thanks to the Dash method it will be possible to prevent ailments such as osteoporosis, since this regimen involves the consumption of foods rich in iron and capable of strengthening bones, and diabetes, given the almost total absence of sugars.

But the benefits of this diet don't end there. The foods included in this food plan (especially fruit and vegetables), in fact, are rich in substances capable of fighting free radicals, which are the main causes of cellular aging.

Finally, it is a diet that has the double advantage of being based on improving the quality of the food ingested, rather than on its reduction, and of leading to an increase in metabolism, thanks to which it will be easier to maintain the results obtained, avoiding the very common yo-yo effect.

The rules of the Dash diet

All diets, to be effective, require a good dose of sacrifices and even the Dash is not far behind. To achieve the results and benefits listed above, you will need to change your lifestyle and abandon bad habits. Here's how to proceed:

Eliminate smoking and the consumption of alcoholic beverages
Engage in regular physical activity
Drastically reduce the consumption of saturated fat
Eat foods rich in potassium, magnesium and essential fatty acids

Contraindications

Changing your diet, following the Dash diet food plan does not imply any kind of contraindication. However, doctors recommend continuing drug therapy against arterial hypertension as this regimen alone cannot alleviate its effects on the body.

In general, before embarking on any diet, we recommend that you contact a competent dietician or nutritionist who, after due evaluation, will be able to develop the most suitable meal plan for you.

Typical menu and daily portions

And here is an example of a daily type menu with the ideal recipes to immediately start losing weight with the Dash diet (the snack is indicated only once, but must be repeated both in the mid-morning and in the mid-afternoon):

Breakfast: ¾ cup of cereal flakes with bran, 1 banana, 1 cup of semi-skimmed milk, 1 slice of soft wheat bread, 1 teaspoon of margarine, 1 glass of orange juice.

Lunch: 180 g of chicken salad, 2 slices of wholemeal bread, 1 tablespoon of mustard, 120 g of salad with slices of fresh cucumber, 120 g of tomatoes, 1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds, 1 teaspoon of spicy sauce for dressing low calorie, 120 g of fruit salad.

Snack: 80 g of unsalted almonds, 60 g of raisins, 125 g of low-fat yogurt with no fat or added sugar, to be eaten with dried fruit or seasonal fruit if necessary.

Dinner: 85g beef, 2 tablespoons fat-free gravy, 1 cup sauteed green beans, ½ teaspoon canola oil, 1 small baked potato, 1 tablespoon non-fat sour cream, 1 tablespoon natural cheddar cheese reduced fat, 1 tablespoon chopped shallot, 1 small roll of wheat, 1 teaspoon margarine, 1 small apple, 1 cup of low-fat milk.

The breakdown of calories during the day should look like this:
Breakfast: about 270 kcal
Snack: about 120/150 kcal
Lunch: about 500 kcal
Snack: 120 kcal
Dinner: about 400 kcal

In general, the Dash diet is not so much aimed at reducing the calories consumed every day, as much as at achieving an optimal state of health, a goal that can only be achieved through a healthy and balanced diet, accompanied by regular physical activity.