“Bite into a healthier lifestyle”
How can you achieve a healthier lifestyle? One “bite” at a time! A bite is a small action with daily commitments that lead to a greater cause. Small, steady changes over time lead to big rewards!
Are you ready to bite into a healthier life?
Nutrition Month and Registered Dietician/Nutritionist Day March 11, is an annual campaign providing information and education to raise awareness on making healthy food and lifestyle choices. This year the theme is “Bite into a Healthy Lifestyle” focusing on the idea that if we make informed decisions on what we put into our body and get regular exercise we are on our way to promoting overall health and decreasing the risk of chronic disease.
For many people, this is about the time of year when our New Year’s resolutions have been forgotten and old habits start to creep back into daily routines.
Healthy eating is not about strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather it is about feeling great, having more energy and stabilizing your mood. People often think of healthy eating as an all or nothing proposition but a key foundation for any healthy diet is moderation. But what is moderation? Moderation is about balance. Despite what certain fad diets would have you believe, we all need a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, fiber, vitamins and minerals to sustain a healthy body.
The goal of healthy eating is to develop a diet that you can maintain for LIFE, not just a few weeks or months or until you’ve hit your ideal weight. For most of us it means eating LESSthat we do now. More specifically eating far less UNHEALTHY stuff such as (candy, cake, doughnuts, cookies, soda and fried foods) replace these with the HEALTHY stuff such as fruits and vegetables.
Every change you make can improve your diet matters. You don’t have to be perfect.
Healthy eating tips:
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- Set Set yourself up for success
- Moderation is the key
- It is not just what you eat, it is how you eat
- Fill up on colorful fruits and vegetables
- Eat more healthy carbs and whole grains
- Enjoy healthy fats & avoid unhealthy fats
- Add calcium for bone health
- Put protein in perspective: replace processed carbs with high quality protein.
- Limit sugar and salt
- Bulk up on fiber
Challenge yourself this week!
Challenge 1: Nothing out of a package consumed can contain more than 5 ingredients. More ingredients =More Processed. Which means Less nutrients.
Challenge 2: Avoid foods that contain high fructose corn syrup. High Fructose has no nutritional value and simply contributes empty calories to the diet.
Challenge 3: Avoid foods withpartially hydrogenated listed on ingredient list. This is another name for TRANs Fat which is the worst kind of fat for you and shouldn’t be in the diet at all.
Challenge 4: All grains consumed must be 100% whole grain, no refined grains. If ’whole’ is not in front of the word ‘grain’ or ‘wheat’ you are missing out on a lot fiber and nutrients.
Challenge 5: At least half your plate at every meal should be fruits and vegetables. Having half your plate with “whole” foods will help you meet your vitamin and mineral intake for the day and fill you up, without all the added calories.
Challenge 6: No fried foods. Fried foods contain a lot of unwanted fat and calories and don’t keep you full.
Challenge 7: Record all foods and beverages you consume in a 7 day food log. This is a great way to give you an idea of how your nutrient intakes compare to recommendations based on individual goals.
Challenge 8:Do not consume artificially sweetened sugars e.g. Splenda, aspartame, etc. These are chemically manufactured products that don’t exist in nature and since they are relatively new to the market we are still uncertain of the long term effects of excessive use.
Challenge 9: Prepare all dinner meals at home. Preparing your meals allows you to control what goes into your body. If you have long work days think about prepping your meals for the week on the weekend to help with time management.
Challenge 10: Avoid fast food. Fast food is loaded in fat and sodium. Portion size is at least double of what a standard portion is.
Challenge11: Consumeonly water, milk, 100% fruit juice, or naturally sweetened coffee and tea. Beverages contribute a lot of sugar and empty calories to the diet without much full factor.
Challenge12: Measure your food. Most people have no idea of the portion size they eat. This is especially helpful if you are trying to lose weight. Even if you are eating the right foods, if you eat too much it can have negative health consequences.