Healthy diet - dinner
You have already included a balanced breakfast and lunch in your diet. The last complete meal that remains is the evening meal. Just like lunch, this depends on your daily schedule. The most important thing is not to eat too much in the evening and to limit the amount of fat in particular. Make sure your body can still process the energy-generating foods and nutrients you take up before you go to sleep. If you're having a "lazy evening", eat as little energy-generating foods and nutrients as possible. If you are going to exercise intensively after dinner, eat enough carbohydrates, because they provide energy quickly. Moreover, your body is designed to burn carbohydrates first and only when they are used up will fats be burned. Therefore: get the necessary energy for the evening from carbohydrates and avoid fats.
Peaceful dining
At the end of the day, you need to unwind to promote a good night's sleep. As far as possible, make sure that all the obligations of the day are taken care of before dinner. Then you can enjoy your dinner and end the day in peace. Make it cosy by sitting down to dinner with the whole family and telling each other about the day's events. The perfect ending!
Light dinner
If you ate your main meal at lunch, you can have a light dinner. This is ideal as it is easily and quickly digested, so that your active stomach does not disturb your sleep. The examples have already been given in the lunch section, since lunch and dinner can be switched if your daily schedule requires it. Here I repeat them again:
EXAMPLE 1
- Brown bread spread with margarine/low-fat margarine
- Filling of your choice (meat/cheese)
- Drink water/coffee/tea
EXAMPLE 2
- Brown bread roll with filling (meat, fish, cheese, beef tartare, etc.) and vegetables
- Drink water/coffee/tea
EXAMPLE 3
- Salad of fresh vegetables, possibly with fish/meat/seafood
- Drink water/coffee/tea
EXAMPLE 4
- Cold platter of rice/potatoes/pasta/quinoa with vegetables and optionally chicken/salmon/tuna
- Drink water/coffee/tea
EXAMPLE 5
- Main dish soup
- Optionally with brown bread
Dinner as main meal
If you were out and about all day, you still have to have your main meal. But watch the quantity: make sure you don't eat too much in the evening, because you are going to rest and will therefore use less energy. As you know, the energy that isn't burnt is stored as fat, and we want to avoid that.
Again, we can use the examples that were given at lunch:
EXAMPLE 1
- Potatoes: 1/4 of total amount of dinner
- Vegetables: 1/2 of total amount of dinner
- Meat/fish: 1/4 of total amount of dinner
- Drink water with your meal
EXAMPLE 2
- Single-pan dish of brown rice, vegetables and possibly meat or fish (e.g. chicken with peas and curry sauce; paella)
- Drink water with your meal
EXAMPLE 3
- Whole-wheat pasta with vegetable pasta sauce, possibly with meat (it is best to make your own fresh sauce with vegetables that everyone in the family likes, you can make several portions and then freeze them for the next time)
- Drink water with your meal
EXAMPLE 4
- Quinoa or couscous dish with vegetables and possibly meat or fish.
- Drink water with your meal
You can supplement any meal with soup beforehand, so you'll eat less of your main meal, as soup, of course, contains many regulating foods, but it also provides energy.
Relaxation
It is important to be able to relax at the end of the day. Turn dinner into a cosy family moment, talk about the day so that everything that is still going on in your head can be concluded and dealt with. After dinner do quiet and relaxing activities. Sport is possible if this is a hobby (relaxation) for you, but first give your body a chance to digest (part of) the food you have taken in and make sure that after the sporting activity you have enough time to unwind after the "adrenaline boost" before you crawl under the covers.
- Translated from Dutch by Tamara Swalef -