Most people think that to have a healthy heart, low blood pressure, depression, and other chronic diseases, you need to spend all your time focusing on exercising and fitness and all the minute details about your body and diet. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Most people follow fad diets like keto, intermittent fasting, etc. without understanding the basics of why those diets work. Not just that, there are websites that talk about what fish to eat for weight loss.
And eating seafood is definitely a good thing but not until you understand the basics of how you’ll experience weight loss. Spoiler alert: It is all about calories in vs calories out. Simple stuff but everyone likes to make things more complicated than they really are.
In fact, there are people who are eating their way to those health goals that all of us have. By just choosing to eat seafood twice a week can help fast-track your health to start moving in that direction.
Why is that? Well, the short and sweet of it is that it is mainly because of the omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, the lean protein, etc. that you get from seafood. In almost all other types of diets, you don’t get the required amount of those minerals. In our other article, I have talked about how hitting your daily recommended amounts of those minerals is important to give your body everything it needs to combat the chronic diseases, blood pressure, etc. that comes with old age.
Related Article: Side Effects of Eating Too Much Shrimp
Shocking thing is, nearly half of all Americans never eat or rarely eat any seafood at all.
I agree that there is a higher risk to the environment and the overall seafood population because of our reckless fishing methods. Contaminants like mercury may also be a huge reason why most people choose not to go with seafood.
But the scientific evidence is very clear for us – eating fish is incredibly beneficial for your health. As long as you’re not overeating it, it cannot become toxic for you. Like a lot of other people like to say.
In this article, I will go over 7 of the best and the healthiest fish you can eat to lose weight.
So without any further ado, let’s jump right into it.
1. Tuna
You knew this was coming. Tuna is on almost every other healthy food list, and for a good reason.
It is hard to go wrong with tuna because it is one of the most nutritious and versatile fish out there. Not to mention the protein to calorie ratio is amazing. In a 3-ounce can of tuna, it has 100 calories and 22 grams of protein. What other source of meat can you get that gives you that ratio?
Not to mention you also get half of your daily vitamin D requirement from just one 3-ounce can of tuna.
But I agree that not everyone wants to eat tuna out of a can. It is much easier to eat your required amount of tuna for the week if you included some snacks like the ones from Starkist or Bumble Bee. You can also add it to your salads and sandwiches and have them as your weekday lunches.
Just make sure you don’t store them in a container for too long or it will start to smell bad.
Related Article: Which Seafoods Are High In Cholesterol?
2. Salmon
Just like tuna, you can never go wrong with salmon either. The wild Alaskan salmon is one of the best salmon out there. It contains a ton of protein and the omega-3 fats that we are always looking for. Not to mention it also packs a lot of selenium that helps fight Alzheimer’s.
And if you are like me and don’t want to spend all your life savings on seafood so you can avoid having Alzheimer’s when you are old, you can also go for canned salmon. It is pretty much the same thing.
3. Tilapia
If you are looking for the cheapest option to include more seafood into your diet then tilapia is the fish to go with. It is mild-tasting and the best part is, with just one cooked tilapia fillet, you can get one-third of your daily vitamin D intake. And it is just 110 calories.
There are a lot of people that don’t like the taste of tilapia which is interesting because according to Washington Post when they did a blind taste test, they found out that people weren’t able to differentiate the taste of tilapia from rainbow trout and branzino.
This test was done by a panel of professional chefs and seafood experts. That goes to show you that you don’t necessarily have to spend hundreds of dollars on seafood for it to taste good. Often you will have cheaper alternatives available to you.
There are tons of people that farm tilapia themselves. And based on how things are going right now, with the pandemic and all, I think it is a good idea to get into some tilapia farming. Whether you do it as a way to reduce stress or to make sure that you are having the best source of seafood available to you.
4. Barramundi
Most people don’t know about this flakey white fish but it is one of the best fish you can eat to lose weight. A 6-ounce fillet has 35grams of protein, selenium, zinc, and other essential vitamins and minerals while only being 140 calories.
Remember, losing weight is all about eating fewer calories than your maintenance. But you also want to make sure that you are consuming enough protein so you don’t lose a lot of muscle mass.
Barramundi, also known as the Asian sea bass or giant perch is one of the best fish out there to consume enough protein while also keeping your total calories low.
5. Trout
If you are worried about how these fish are farmed or whether they contain a high amount of mercury in them, you do not need to worry about that with trout. All of the rainbow trout that is sold in the U.S. is farm-raised. Meaning it is one of the best and the safest fish you can eat out there while also being confident that the farmers are following all the guidelines to raise them ethically while also keeping them nutritious.
Speaking of trout being nutritious, one fillet of this fish contains 20 grams of protein (that’s almost the same amount as one serving of your whey protein) while still being only 150 calories.
Now, if you compare the calories of trout or any other food out there with your whey protein supplement, the supplement will always come out on top because it barely has any calories in it.
That is pure protein. But here’s the question: are you going to just drink protein shakes all day to hit your protein requirement? Or do you like to eat different things and treat yourself every once in a while?
That’s the idea of this article – you can treat yourself to seafood twice every week so you can speed up the process of you reaching a point where your heart is in good shape and you also have a lower chance of Alzheimer’s.
You can grill or bake your trout to retain a majority of the omega-3 fatty acids in them so you can hit your daily requirement of those as well.
6. Sardines
Sardines are very small fish but they like to swim in big groups. You can eat multiple sardines on your seafood eating day and get a good amount of vitamin B12 for that day which is one of the most important nutrients for your red blood cells, helping your nerves function and DNA synthesis.
Just eating 2 sardines in a given day can get you 18% of your daily requirement of vitamin B12.
The remaining you can get from other food sources or you can also pop a multivitamin to not worry about not hitting your daily requirements of all the micro-nutrients.
7. Cod
Cod and tuna are the 2 fish preferred by bodybuilders. And it makes sense why that is. A 3-ounce of cooked cod has just 90 calories while also having 15-20 grams of protein. This ratio of low calories and high protein is something most bodybuilders prefer.
And you should too because it is known that most people don’t consume enough protein in their day. And once they get older, they consume even less protein.
This leads to less muscle mass in their bodies which increases the risk of them injuring themselves with even the slightest of bumps and bruises.
Not to mention the lower muscle mass means higher fat percentage in the body which is a recipe for disaster when it comes to heart conditions. This is why you see that heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the world.
Enough of the gloom and doom. Let’s get back to cod.
You want to make sure that you buy cod that is caught in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic ones because cod is more abundant in the Pacific ocean.