The world is becoming more and more enlightened about the importance of eating healthy foods. These days, many people are on a journey to lose weight, gain some muscles, or just to maintain their current weight. They employ a bunch of strategies to achieve this. The strategy you choose for your fitness lifestyle depends on a few things that are peculiar to you.
For instance, you cannot switch up your meals and become a vegetarian overnight. You have to review your goals, the time frame, the pros, and the cons of becoming a vegetarian before going ahead with the plan. You also have to take it one step at a time; introducing your plant-based foods 2 to 3 times in a week for a start until you get a good hold of it.
Another way you can gradually let yourself into the vegetarian life is by doing the pescatarian diets. You may even decide to stick to this by the time you start to see its results. What exactly is this plan all about, how does it compare with other plans, and what are the pros and cons of it?
What Are Pescatarian Diets?
This meal plan is similar to that of vegetarians, except, in this case, it involves fish and seafood. No poultry, no red meat, only plant-based foods, and seafood.
Just like many others, you can choose to modify this plan and include some eggs and dairy products. As a matter of fact, a lot of people include eggs and other dairy products to their pescatarian diet plan for weight loss and they still end up with cool results.
What to Eat and What Not to?
What to eat include:
- Eggs
- Beans and legumes
- Whole grains
- Fruits
- Nuts and seeds
- Fish
- Shellfish
- Tofu
Optional additions include:
- Milk
- Yogurt
- Eggs
- Cheese
What not to eat include:
- Bacon
- Pork
- Poultry
- Beef
- Lamb
- Deli meat
Come to think of it, why do people engage in the pescatarian diet plan? You’ll need to ask this question before you go ahead with this plan. Here are a few reasons.
- Quite a number of people are big on ethics and are ready to do whatever it takes to uphold them. Poor labor conditions, opposing slaughter, inhumane ways of raising livestock, and humanitarian reasons are some of the reasons people prefer this plan.
- It helps in reducing the environmental concerns that are harmful to humans. Raising livestock contributes a great deal to pollution by way of man-made carbon emissions. This is nothing like what you get from ponds and poultries.
- This meal plan comes with a lot of health benefits as you can imagine. This is probably the most common reason people opt for this nutritional plan. For instance, it helps with weight loss. In fact, a lot of people refer to it as the pescatarian weight loss diet owing to its benefits in that regards. In addition to that, scientific research revealed that people who go on this and the type are less likely to develop diabetes and heart disease.
Important Notes to Take About Pescatarian Diets
The pescatarian diet plans may be all that and more, but you have to be careful about what type of fish you consume. According to findings, larger species of fishes, in a lot of cases, contain mercury and other toxins that are very dangerous to health.
Fishes like sharks, king mackerel, tilefish, swordfish, etc, are some species you should avoid in order to cut out their poisonous contents. More than any other demography, this advise to cut out poisonous fishes goes to children, pregnant women, and women who hope to conceive in future.
Also, carbs are very hugely represented in this plot. Overeating carbs can counter your efforts, especially if you are hoping to lose some weights. Always count how many calories you take per meal to make sure you’re not overeating, drink a lot of water, and do some exercise at least 3 times a week.