Healthy eating in the summer

How do you take care of healthy eating during the holidays? What can you do to complete an optimal diet? What to eat during the annoying hot weather? Summer is a season we look forward to all year round.

It is a time for rest and regeneration of the strength weakened by winter. At the same time, it is a period in which the way our body functions changes. During hot, sunny days, we sweat more, feel heavy, hungry and weak. In summer, we lose significant amounts of water from our bodies. 

In order to avoid dehydration, we should drink at least 2.5 litres of fluids a day and make sure that we regularly replenish the micronutrients lost through sweat. A well-rounded diet rich in vitamins and nutrients will also help us to stay in shape.

Vegetable menu

Vegetables should form the basis of our summer menu. Hot weather is not conducive to eating fatty, heavy food, after which we only become more tired and sleepy. Rather, we should lean towards several (optimally five) light meals per day. An excellent dish or meal supplement would be salads of various kinds.

Recommended salads include those made from tomatoes and Chinese cabbage, which contain vitamins B1, B2 and B6, from courgettes, which are rich in vitamin A, and from young peas, which are a mine of vitamin E. 

Soups in the form of coolers and steamed broccoli, cauliflower and green beans (vitamin A and C) will also be an interesting addition to your summer menu. In addition, it is worth giving up calorie-dense snacks such as crisps and opting for nutritious snacks in the form of pieces of fresh carrot or cucumber. Introducing such a menu into our lives will quickly make us feel light and healthy.

Fruit

During the holiday season, we have an abundance of fresh fruit, which is an extremely important part of a balanced diet. A dessert in the form of a few peaches (vit. A, C, PP), a bowl of strawberries (vit. C) or raspberries (vit. B12, D, K) or a bunch of grapes (vit. A, B, E) will not only look beautiful on the table and taste wonderful, but will also provide us with many ingredients essential for health.

Sweet, fizzy drinks can be replaced by water with lemon and mint or natural fruit juices freshly squeezed at home. This will quench your thirst while avoiding unnecessary sugars and harmful preservatives.  

Keep it fresh

An important aspect of healthy eating, which is often forgotten, is the proper storage of food. To ensure that fruit and vegetables do not lose their vitamins through oxidation when they come into contact with the air, we should keep them in the right conditions. It is important not to wash them immediately after purchase, but only just before eating. This way, they will retain their value for longer. It is also important to protect them from heat and insects. It is best to keep them in the refrigerator or in special containers. 

The elements of health

Warm days often encourage us to increase our physical activity. However, during exercise, we lose many essential micronutrients such as calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium along with our sweat. Every athlete knows how important it is to make up for their deficiency. Therefore, we should consume as many products containing these minerals as possible. Calcium can be found in milk and orange juice, sodium in egg white and salt, potassium in apricots, bananas, spinach and potatoes, and magnesium in nuts, berries and pineapples.

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