We focus on healthy eating and exercise at A Strong Life in Hartford, CT. What you eat affects your overall health and can be used to maximize muscle building, avoid foods your body doesn’t tolerate and help you lose weight. People become vegetarians for a number of reasons that include both philosophy and health. The caveman diet—also known as the Paleo diet—follows other philosophies and is based on what ancestors might have eaten. With all that said, what is the flexitarian diet? It’s neither raw food based, nor does it eliminate all animal products. It uses the best of those diets.
While Dawn Jackson Blatner created the flexitarian diet, other diets use a similar formula.
You don’t have to eliminate all meat, dairy, fish and eggs from the flexitarian diet, but you simply eat them in moderation. Vegetarians may consume some of those things, like milk products, while vegans not only exclude all animal products, many don’t use animal products like leather, silk or bees wax. Flexitarians eat all types of food, animal or plant-based, but they limit the amount of animal-derived food products and eat more vegetables.
A flexitarian diet is based on a healthy diet and shares many things with other healthy diets.
Flexitarians eat mostly fruits, whole grains, legumes and vegetables, getting much of their protein from plant sources. That doesn’t prevent a flexitarian from eating animal products occasionally. Flexitarians focus on whole foods, eating ones closest to their natural state. They also limit the amount of added sugar in their diet and cut out most sweet treats. Basically, the diet is described by its name. It’s follows the rules of being a flexible vegetarian.
A flexitarian diet doesn’t have rules or a specific plan to follow.
If you want a flexitarian diet plan, you won’t find one. There are no basic rules or requirements. Several types of diets could fall into the flexitarian range, particularly those that focus mostly on plants. It’s simply a healthy way of eating that follows sage advice, which includes cutting out highly processed food and those with added sugar. It’s similar to the Mediterranean diet, but without a specific meal plan.
- It’s difficult to measures all the benefits of a flexitarian diet, since there is not strict plan, but the increased fiber, plant nutrition and healthy fat has been shown to reduce the potential of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
- The decrease in added sugar and refined food in the flexitarian diet has been shown to be a benefit for weight loss. It provides the benefits of a plant based diet, but is flexible enough for people to stick with it.
- If you’re a true fan of eating meat and animal products, a flexitarian style diet may be your best option. It doesn’t require you to give up meat entirely, just eat a little less and consume more plant protein.
- Depending on how much animal protein is eaten, there may be problems with nutrition. For instance, limiting the consumption of animal proteins too much can create a deficiency in B12, iron, zinc or calcium. Choosing a good balance is important.
For more information, contact us today at A Strong Life