Lose me in French. 3 rules of the autumn diet

There is a version that Napoleon Bonaparte was poisoned, but, most likely, the brilliant commander died of boredom: on the godforsaken island of St. Helena, the same air temperature is the same all year round - 20 degrees Celsius! Is it the case of Russia. The historian Klyuchevsky believed that the Russian national character formed a pronounced seasonality. The season determines our motor stereotypes, creative impulses (remember Pushkin, who literally gushed poetry in the fall), wardrobe and, of course, the menu. Grandfather’s wisdom “every vegetable has its own time” any good housewife knows and observes holy. Therefore, those people look amazingly ridiculous in the summer, amid the abundance of berries and fruits, suddenly prefer unsalted rice with chicken breast, and in the fall, when there are lots of apples and zucchini around, they go on a “pineapple diet”. But not only vegetables and fruits are seasonal. The nutritional value of meat and fish also depends on the time of year. Our great-grandmothers, for example, loved to bring a well-fed October hare to the table in the fall, and in early spring they ate fragrant March grouse.

Without labor and without a pond

Thank God, modern agricultural holdings saved us from the need to equip husbands to hunt for the November duck: not only poultry - pork, beef of quite suitable quality are now produced year-round. Only fish, for the most part, remained a seasonal commodity. Fresh harvest, sorry, capelin catch goes on sale in February, flounder in April, and pollack for the New Year. Autumn is a time of herring and pink salmon.

Many people mistakenly believe that fish and meat with prolonged freezing retain nutritional value, but this is not so. Omega-3 fatty acids, with which I bind the healing properties of red fish, tend to “burn out” - to oxidize. This process is active at minus 18 degrees. A couple of months in the refrigerator, and the beneficial properties of fish oil will not remain a trace, so it is important to have time to saturate the body on time. Moreover, iodine (it is more in pink salmon than in shrimp and oysters) disappears from the fish completely after 2 months of storage.

Therefore, the statement that pink salmon dishes contribute to weight loss, due to the high content of iodine and omega-3 fatty acids, requires clarification: only from September to December! In January (after 3 months of freezing or salting), there is no iodine or useful fatty acids in pink salmon.

By the way, Napoleon was the first to notice that residents of iodine-poor areas have swelling of the thyroid gland and, as a rule, are obese, demented and hearing-impaired. His recruiters carefully watched so that such unfortunate fighters did not fall into the French army.

Not a single pink salmon ...

Red fish has always tempted nutritionists with its "weight loss" properties. Give them free rein, autumn diet programs would only consist of salmon and pink salmon. But the human psyche is against such monotony - any fish has an unpleasant property, the culinary experts call it "boring." It is impossible to force a person to eat only fish of one species daily. The same sort of bread is possible, but there is no fish! The case will end in a nervous breakdown and aversion to all fish products in principle. Therefore, the first rule of the autumn diet sounds like this.

When choosing a decent frame for fish delicacies, in addition to the historical seasonal factors, it is important to take into account the immediate needs: along with the autumn blues, the population is overcome with physical dreams and the desire to lose vacation pounds. Therefore, the diet should take into account the sad, but indisputable fact. Any method of weight loss - a kind of time machine, which quickly transfers losing weight to a sad pre-retirement future. The reason is the oxidative stress that cells experience in the process of enhanced fat breakdown. Yes, these are the very free radicals from which the skin ages, malignant tumors form, and brain cells die.

A study in Scarlet

In fact, there is an effective mechanism for neutralizing free radicals in the body. And it works fine until the Russian peasant (in our case, excuse me, a woman), by her emergency habit, starts all the oxidation processes available in the reserve: burning fat on aerobics, low-calorie diet and some kind of pharmacological thermogenics (bioadditive, accelerating metabolism). Then comes the most dangerous consequence of oxidative stress - the cells die or degenerate into carcinogens. Rescue in this case - antioxidants. It is easy to find them - it is almost all fruits, vegetables and berries that have a bright dark red, and preferably purple color. Flavonols antioxidants are found in the coloring pigment, that is, closer to the shell of the fruit and vegetable.

Blueberries, prunes, black currants, eggplant, beets, red onions, red cabbage, black rowan, any purple-red dish - every day, as long as the desire to lose weight excites the brain and body. This is the second rule of autumn unloading.

"To become tasty, a fish must swim three times: in water, in oil and in wine." French proverb

I would not want to advocate alcohol in the health column, but truth is more expensive. Red wine has two times more antioxidants than blueberries. Napoleon, by the way, also loved burgundy red. The convoy with wine accompanied him on all trips, even in exile to the dull Saint Helena in 1816, the disgraced emperor and his retinue destroyed 3,674 bottles! 10 bottles a day. This is probably why the arsenic with which he was allegedly poisoned brought him to his grave far from immediately. The content of poison in the body of the emperor was such that it would be enough for a dozen royal persons.

There was a moral problem - should I drink a glass of 2001 Gevrey Chambertin after an evening run? This is of course a joke! Green tea is a perfectly healthy substitute for red wine. Let 4 cups less flavonoids in one cup than in a glass of red wine and to consume a daily norm of antioxidants, you need to drink up to 9 cups of green tea, but, nevertheless, it is safe and not fraught with alcoholism.

Fat in chocolate - it exists!

The mysterious figure in the cocked hat again appears in the background as soon as it comes to the most effective and, most pleasantly, delicious antioxidant chocolate. In its protective power, it is 10 times stronger than wine. True, we are talking about cocoa mass without sugar, but the usual bar of chocolate has antioxidant activity several times higher than grapes, green tea, any fruits and vegetables.

In Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon, chocolate is usually added to meat. "Porc au chocolat" - pork tenderloin in chocolate sauce - one of Napoleon's favorite dishes. He rightly considered it not only satisfying, but also very useful. In the mornings, it was over a cup of cocoa that he discussed future victories with his marshals. Having tasted his chocolate delicacy, the emperor liked to say: "Keeping people from growing old - this is a great art of management." Why did he have such associations? For the first time, antioxidants in cocoa, as a cure for old age, were spoken about one and a half centuries after his death. Alas, ordinary people cannot comprehend the movements of the ingenious mind, but we are entitled to take advantage of its insights.

A cup of hot cocoa at the very moment when the autumn melancholy begins to take up with determination and will, at that bitter moment of despair, when it seems that fighting with yourself is no longer possible - the third, most delicious rule of autumn weight loss.

Believe me, as soon as a glass of aromatic drink warms cold hands, the words of the famous strategist will sound in your head: “Impossibility is a word from the dictionary of fools!” And here you are again at the forefront of the battle for your own beauty.