Ive never been over weight, but Ive gained a very large interest in nutrition due to becoming quite underweight and malnourished as a result of an addiction to mdma and other various amphetamines. Since then ive spend hundreds of hours researching nutrition and plan to go to school for it after i go to culinary school. When you get down to it, the basics of gaining weight and loosing weight are surprisingly quite similar. If you really want to do it right then you would calculate out the macrobiotics of your foods, and follow a certain ratio of protein to meat to fat.
I think some of the most overlooked foods when people are trying to either gain or loose weight for health purposes are fats. Obviously eating saturated and trans fats is going to do you no good at all, but getting in healthy fats is very important. Olives and avocados, along with their respective oils are two very good sources of different mono and polyunsaturated fats. Hemp seeds provide you with your omega 3 and omega 6 in the perfect ratio to each other unlike any other plant. Chia seeds are the worlds highest source of omega 3. Most importantly people who want to loose weight should take virgin coconut oil. It is made entirely out a saturated fat called lauric acid. Now in any other situation i would say that saturated fat is bad, but lauric acid on the other hand is a very important fat which is only found in high concentrations in human breast milk, and coconuts. It will increase your metabolism, give you more energy, along with having an array of antioxidants and other immune boosting benefits.
ok this is gunna turn out being really long if i write out everything i have to say, so maybe ill come back to it later, but for now ill leave this short list of some healthy foods and their benefits
hemp seeds-complete protein(contains all essential amino acids), has more protein than any other seed, high in many supplements and minerals such as magnese, has a large amount of omega 3s and 6s in the perfect ratio
salmon-non land based protien can be very beneficial as i contains many amino acids not typically found in land dwelling meats. Very high amount of omega 3, the skin has the most omega, so dont pull it off when you eat it.
whey protein concentrate-dont buy the disgusting bodybuilding crap like muscle milk, but get something like a plain organic whey protein concentrate. Whey is the most bioavailable protein in the world.
Bison meat-very similar to beef, less fat more protein
wild boar meat-more protein than any other meat, its also delicious, imagine pork that you can cook medium rare
quinoa-amazing superfood, complete protein like meat and unlike other grains. Decent fiber content as well.
natural sweeteners-raw honey, maple syrup, coconut palm sugar etc. If your going to sweeten something what ever you do dont use that god awful cane sugar. At this point i have almost completely eliminated it from my diet. Something with a lower glycemic index will be better for someone trying to loose weight.
sprouted foods are also very good as the sprouting process makes your body do less work to digest foods, thus making the nutrients more absorbable.
ok ill it at that for now...