The diet dinner should be light and consist of vegetables, meat, fish, bread, whole grain pasta, cereal and rice. A healthy dinner is a very important meal on the diet, we should eat it 2-3 hours before bedtime.
Eating dinner prevents nighttime binge eating and sudden drops in blood glucose.
You have no idea for a diet dinner? Use our recipes!
For some, dinner is the most important, and often even the only meal of the day. After returning from work, just before bedtime, they eat a lot, fat, sweet and … can not sleep. Others, using slimming diets, give up dinner and … wake up hungry in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, every day we should regularly eat 5 small meals, including dinner. This avoids a sharp drop in blood glucose levels and attacks of wolf hunger in the evening and at night. In the saying in the morning eat like a king, and in the evening like a beggar is quite a lot.
Dietary, but filling dinner is even necessary for those who are slimming – it prevents night eating and trouble sleeping. Stressed and tired people should not forget about the evening meal – hunger intensifies the symptoms of stress.
The dinner should constitute 20% of the energy value of the diet and consist of protein products, vegetables that do not have bloating properties and whole-grain cereal products. You should give up fatty foods, fast food, pizza, sweet snacks and fruit. For dinner, fresh vegetable salads and hot dishes are great.
What to Eat for a Dietary Dinner?
In the evening we don’t need as much energy until noon. So let’s eat light and low calories, preferably not more than 250 kcal. The dinner menu should include mixed and whole grain bread (but not more than 1-2 slices), lean dairy products, especially cottage cheese. Kefir, plain yoghurt or buttermilk is recommended. Also recommended are lean meat, poultry and chicken, as well as sea fish, e.g. tuna, salmon.
Let’s enjoy vegetables and fruits with lower fiber content. Let’s choose lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, sprouts, citruses and cooked vegetables. Combining them properly, we’ll prepare a nutritious and appetizing salad in no time. These multi-ingredient snacks are tasty and enrich your diet with wholesome protein source from dairy products, fish, meat and eggs, carbohydrates (rice, pasta) as well as fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Dietary Dinner – What to Avoid?
When composing a dietary dinner, it is best to avoid fatty meat dishes, especially fried and reheated in fat, fast food, fries, chips and pizza, because they promote weight gain. For the same reason, sweet snacks are inadvisable, in addition to fat they provide a lot of simple sugars – they rapidly raise blood glucose levels, but after 2 hours you feel like having a snack again. This is a common cause of evening and night eating, which leads to excess weight.
With reserve, you should also approach drinking milk in the evening. Although a cup of warm milk is a great natural sleeping pill, it can immediately cause unpleasant discomfort (diarrhoea and stomach ache) in people suffering from lactose intolerance.
Some vegetables with high fiber content are not recommended, e.g. white and red cabbage, which also contain sours essential oils. It is also worth remembering that fiber, although very healthy, in excess can cause increased fermentation in the digestive tract, which entails unpleasant gastrointestinal discomfort, including feeling of fullness, pressure and even stomach ache.
In some people, digestive problems occur even after eating fruit, e.g. raw peeled apples, plums or cherries. Similar symptoms can be caused by a few tablespoons of baked beans, pea soup or broad beans. Legumes have a lot of bloating sugars. Of course, strong black tea and coffee are also on the blacklist, because they have a stimulating effect and make falling asleep difficult.
What is the Best Time for Dinner?
It is worth eating dinner no later than 2-3 hours before bedtime, so as not to burden the stomach at night. In the evening the body works slower, digestion lasts longer, even 4-5 hours, especially after a meal with a lot of fat or fiber. In addition, at the end of the day, when we are less active, tired, lazy and we have a slower metabolism, fat burning is difficult. At this time, however, we produce more hormones that facilitate energy accumulation and promote weight gain.
Dietary dinner – 4 simple recipes
Salad with chicken and red rice
Calories: 232 kcal
Components
Boil the quinoa. Season the chicken fillet using your favourite spices. Give it a little oil. Cut the tomato and celery into cubes. Mix all ingredients, sprinkle with lemon juice and season to taste.
Salad with goat cheese and croutons
Calories: 347 kcal
Components
Cut the vegetables into cubes. Prepare the dip by mixing honey, mustard and olive oil. Dice the bread, season and make croutons. Arrange chopped vegetables, goat cheese, croutons, sunflower sprouts on top of the spinach, pour over the whole with dip.
Peppers stuffed with vegetables and millet with ricotta
Calories: 242 kcal
Components
Cut the pepper in half, hollow the seeds. Boil millet in water, mix with pre-stewed vegetables, ricotta, parsley and spices. Stuff the peppers with the prepared mass. Bake for about 25 minutes at 180 degrees C.
Greek-style fish with whole grain bread
Calories: 303 kcal
Components
Make the fish roast without adding fat. Clean the vegetables and grate on a grater, put in a pot, add canned tomatoes, spices. Stew until tender. Arrange the fish on a plate, put the previously prepared vegetables on the fish. Serve with wholemeal bread.