I get lots of questions about healthy weight loss from blog readers like you, as well as my ezine subscribers, and I’m sharing a recent weight loss tip I gave in case it helps another mom out there in her healthy weight loss journey:

Healthy Weight Loss Question: Do I have to eat beans and nuts to lose weight? It seems like I wouldn’t lose weight if I ate those items.

My Answer: As you may already know know, I recommend a whole-foods, mostly plant-based diet for health and weight loss purposes based on Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s recommendations for healthy weight loss. And that includes greens, beans, fruit and healthy fats such as raw sunflower seeds and pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and raw nuts like cashews, walnuts and almonds, plus ground flaxseeds. This approach to weight loss is what I used myself and still follow to this day to maintain a healthy weight effortlessly. (In case you’re new to this blog, I want to note that I don’t advise trying to make every dietary change at once if you’ve struggled in the past with sticking to a weight loss program! Easing in really helps. But that’s another post for another time.)

Even though it seems as if eating nuts or seeds would be problematic for healthy weight loss, in reality, most women need to eat fat so that their bodies will actually release body fat instead of hoarding it for hard times. Plus, healthy fats serve several purposes vital to our health — assisting with brain function, digestion and much more. So while you don’t have to eat huge amounts of fat every day — just an ounce of raw nuts or seeds and half an avocado is all you need if you’re overweight — you do need to eat fat daily to lose weight healthfully.

Several years ago when I was in the process of losing weight myself, I hit a plateau or set point within about 10 lbs. of my ideal weight, and I tried multiple things to get past it. At that point, because I’d become more physically active, my body began requiring more healthy fats, and literally within a day of adding in more fat, the scale began moving again. This is really common as you near your ideal weight, though certainly there is very occasionally someone who needs less fat rather than more (but there’s never a reason to eliminate healthy fats from your diet entirely, which can be risky for your health!).

Likewise, we need beans in our diet for our health because they provide a wonderfully healthy protein source and plenty of staying power in our bodies so that our meals last in our systems longer. If you follow the basic eating plan outlined by Dr. Fuhrman in Eat to Live and ensure that you’re not overeating on nuts, seeds, dried fruit or regular fruit for that matter (7-8 pieces of fruit a day for an average woman who works out 3-4 times a week for 45 minutes would certainly be too much in most cases), then it might be time to consider eating 1/2 cup of beans a day rather than the minimum 1 cup that’s part of the regular plan.

Remember, healthy weight loss means, among other things, treating your body kindly and giving it the nutrients it needs not only to survive (we can, after all, survive on junk food for a good long while, but that still leads long-term to illness, fatigue and also — yes! — premature aging! and who wants that?!), but to THRIVE!