Great post so entered our life that today a special menu is offered even in restaurants and airplanes. Lenten menu is sometimes much more diverse than usual and very popular.
Not least thanks to the opinion that lean is healthy, and that by giving up animal gifts for a while, you can easily get rid of extra pounds. According to the results of the survey, no more than 5% of SHE readers follow the fast, but 40% consider it useful, but they can not gather the will into a fist.
How true are the conversations about the benefits of fasting, the SHE correspondent learned from nutritionists.
Forbidden fruit
In fact, Lent is very strict, and observing it by all the rules is equated with a feat. This year, the post will last until April 26, and many are aware that in these seven weeks you can not eat meat, poultry and dairy products. On some days, fish, lean oil and even grape wine are allowed. The complete list of banned and allowed products is very extensive and varies depending on the week of fasting. And on some days there is and is completely forbidden – these are days of starvation.
Fasting – and this is the most important thing in it – is not an exercise for gaining health, losing weight or improving the complexion. It is difficult to imagine that the fathers of the church had motives to help the flock lose weight. After all, fasting is first and foremost the purification of the soul, which is accompanied by limitations of earthly pleasures – and not only food (they are simply more on hearing). It is unlikely that for reasons of “recovery” someone will agree to a voluntary 40-day sexual abstinence, but the refusal to eat – please.
Uses and limitations
The arguments of the opponents of the fast-food menu are the same as those of anti-vegetarians: in lean food, a person does not receive important amino acids that are in animal proteins, and also voluntarily limits himself in the animal source of important vitamins – for example, fat-soluble A and D, also vitamin B12, and also calcium and iron.
However, temporary restrictions in food lead to the fact that all levels of metabolic processes in the body are intensified. Nutritionist Vladimir Zhevachevsky notes that this leads to better assimilation of nutrients coming from food and improves the work of internal organs. In addition, contributes to the rise of vivacity and tone.
“A person can safely live on a plant diet for two or three weeks,” said Natalia Salnikova, a dietitian at the Effekt health center. – However, 40 days is a lot for those who lead an active lifestyle, go in for sports.
Workers of intellectual labor are less dependent on meat, therefore, in intellectual processes such restrictions are not reflected. Of course, provided that a person is not under stress from a constant feeling of hunger. ”
The list of people who can not be fasted to has even a church: these are pregnant women, children of early age, adolescents in the period of active growth, elderly people with diseases. Contraindications for people of reproductive age are pathologies of the heart, lungs, oncological processes, exacerbations of any chronic diseases. In addition, the abundance of plant foods with an abundance of fiber will harm people who are prone to constipation, swelling, with problems in the digestive system, with liver and pancreas diseases.
Get rid of cargo
It is believed that fasting is a good reason to cleanse the body of toxins (the end products of metabolism), which is justified. “During this period, due to the acceleration of exchange processes, the release of slag is also activated. In addition, the restriction of animal food results in fewer products of its decay, “- commented Nikolai Zhevachevsky.
No doubt: vegetables are useful. However, there are also pitfalls. About them we were told by the dietician of the Siberian Federal Center for Healthy Nutrition Olga Poznyak:
“Seriously about the cleansing of the body can be said, if we could, like southerners, now afford a sufficient amount of fresh greens in the diet, and not starchy roots, which in our food the majority. And if you used unpeeled cereals, and not steamed and polished, like many of our cereals and instant cereals. ”
Fasting as a diet
Indeed, in fasting, you can lose weight. Fiber and dietary fiber contribute to the cleansing of the intestines. In addition, the body removes excess fluid – the weight goes away. However, experts are unanimous: fasting is not a method of losing excess weight. “If the meat in the form of smoked meat and sausages, generously flavored with mayonnaise, prevailed before the fasting on the table, he really will lose weight, giving up on them,” Olga Poznyak said.
However, it is a mistake to think that the lean menu is less caloric. First, as already mentioned, the basis of the diet in our conditions is starchy and carbohydrate food: beets, potatoes, cereals. Or protein-carbohydrate – beans, for example. And strictly speaking, fasting does not mean sitting on porridge, water and bread. The correct Lenten menu consists of various and nutritious dishes, including mushrooms, nuts, fruits.
In other words, the lean menu does not mean an easy and cheap way to cleanse and lose weight. If you still decide to join, consider several points:
1. Just in case, visit the doctor. There are diseases in which the abandonment of animal food can only harm or dramatically worsen the condition. In any case, carefully listen to the sensations: if there is discomfort, then, perhaps, some disorder.
2. Turn on the imagination and stock up on time and money. In Siberia, fresh vegetables do not grow in April, vitamins are already scarce, and fantasy is often limited to fried potatoes and vegetable casseroles. With such a diet you will not benefit. Nuts, mushrooms, fruits, brown rice, beans, beans, soybeans – will have to work hard to comply with the rules, cook delicious and satisfying. Otherwise, feel not an inflow of strength, but a decline, permanent weakness, drowsiness and headache.
3. Take vitamins and minerals. Ideally, two-thirds of them should come from food. In our conditions, and even in the spring it is problematic, so doctors recommend even increasing the usual dosage for the time of fasting or eating fortified foods. Although the responsibility for their composition is borne by the manufacturer only.
4. Do not give up milk, eggs and fish. Observe a strict fast would be ideal in hot India. For an average Siberian a strict fast is like vegetarianism – in severe conditions of our climate with changes in temperature, strict vegetarianism can also do harm, so it is better to follow a facilitated version.
5. Realize your motivation. Perhaps you decided to fast, because you want to change something in your life, get rid of something, or just lose weight? Then this period is the time to begin to observe the principles of proper nutrition. And this is the guarantee of health, but only if you make self-control a permanent, rather than a 40-day forced measure.
