You may have noticed that here in Nigeria it is quite difficult to get the right type of food to incorporate into our diets as our foods are not actually found on the web. What foods to eat to help us lose weight and burn fat, and what foods to avoid. In general, we would try to avoid foods high in simple carbohydrates and prefer those high in protein.
However, below is a list of various types of foods to cut down on when trying to lose weight on the Nigerian diet. Note that I didn’t say you should stop taking them completely, but try to cut them down to as little as possible! The Nigerian diet consists of various types of food, but most of our food, especially for the Yorubas, is fatty and starchy.
Foods to decrease intake in the Nigerian diet include:
1. Pounded yam: popularly called iyan, it contains a lot of starch. Try to reduce your intake of this.
2. Amala – Made from the back of yams, so it’s also quite starchy.
3. Garri: just cassava flour! He is known to be one of the promoters of the big flabby belly.
4. Tuwo shinkafa: pounded rice, so it contains more or less as many carbohydrates as white rice.
5. Soups – I suggest you avoid Nigerian soups when you are trying to lose weight because most of them contain a lot of oils. However, some soups like okro soup, if cooked without oils, can be very good to incorporate into your Nigerian diet weight loss program.
6. Ofada rice, white rice
7. Akpu, also another cassava product, which is high in simple carbohydrates and should be reduced. Akpu is also known for promoting big bellies!
Keep in mind that you should not completely eliminate the above carbohydrate foods from your diet, but try to limit their consumption to the minimum possible.
Foods to increase intake in our diet include:
1. As always, Beans. This contains a large amount of protein and they are good building blocks for muscles. They are also one of the fat burning foods
2. Fish: Fish has a very high protein content
3. Fruits: Watermelons, apples, oranges, bananas, etc.
4. vegetables: with very little oil. vegetables are high in fiber.
5. Chicken and turkey: try removing the skin before eating!
6. ukpa (of ibo origin) also high in protein content.
7: bean cake: yo yo.
So now we can see that even though our foods are not popularly listed and classified, there are several foods that we can eat to lose weight!
When I started my weight loss program, it was a difficult task. Avoiding rice and eba was a big problem for me, but I knew I had to do something about my tummy. so I stuck to eggs for breakfast, beans for lunch, vegetables for dinner, and fruit in between. Those weeks seemed like the hardest of my life, but before long, I started seeing results!
