Little Diet Changes Can Make a Big Difference
These days you can’t open a newspaper, pick up a magazine or turn on the TV without being inundated with messages about being healthy. It is great that these messages are coming through the main stream media, because America is bigger and unhealthier than ever before. The good old USofA tops the charts in obesity statistics. According to the Food Standards Agency, between the years 1999-2000 34% of America’s females and 27.7% of men could have been considered obese. The next country on the list, Argentina, wasn’t too far behind, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we here in the US are letting fast food options and lazy schedules outweigh the need for making healthier choices around our eating habits. Making little changes in your diet and eating choices can really make a strong impact on your health, weight and general well-bring. If they seem all too daunting to do at once, just make a small change per week and see how your body feels. You may be pleasantly surprised at the ease of making the little things into big impacts. Read on and be healthy.
Have a Healthy Kitchen
It should come as no surprise that creating healthier eating habits begins right at home in your very own kitchen. One good place to start is a good old fashioned purge. No, not the kind that can lead to an eating disorder, but rather a purge of food in your kitchen. After coming home following an exhausting work day, it is so tempting and easy to reach for fast, yet less healthy food choices. If you make the effort to not keep any tempting food in your kitchen, you are less likely to eat it. Simple? Yes. On the same tack, take time when you have time, maybe on a Saturday or Sunday, to cook for yourself meals to last through the week. That way even if you are dragging your tired self home at 9 pm, you will already have your meal choices made for you.
Healthy Diet Alternatives
As far as cooking specifics are concerned, there are a few no-brainers. You would have to live on another planet to not know that nutritionists and doctors recommend plenty of colorful vegetables, whole grains, legumes and healthy fats like avocado and olive oil. If you try and incorporate more of these in your diet and let them take the place of your standard meat and potatoes, you’ll quickly have a positive effect on your body’s health. If you are feeling particularly radical, you could try eating completely vegetarian or even vegan (no meat, eggs or dairy products). However, those are large lifestyle choices that require a great deal of thought and research and should be made with care and consideration. If you fancy yourself an avid baker, you can make small substitutions in your recipes that will help slash fat yet retain the flavors you love. In muffins, cookies and cakes, substitute an equal amount of applesauce for the oil called for. Where eggs are called for, try ground flax seeds or even an egg replacer. Some people enjoy stir-frying their vegetables and meat in oils. This may satisfy your craving for the greasy, but just remember that a tablespoon of olive oil alone contains 140 calories. Multiply that times three and you’ve already got a meal’s worth of calories. Try using cooking spray when stir-frying food, or just be conscious of how much oil you use. A little can go a long way. If paired with other flavorful liquids like soy sauce or hot sauce, you won’t even miss all of the oil you have taken out.
Take Time to Slow Down
This is a fast food generation. People are always grabbing meals on the go, and the tradition of sitting down to dinner with your family has sadly fallen by the wayside. With families often having both parents working full-time, it may not be realistic to hope that a family can eat together every night. However, if you schedule the time and make the effort, 2-3 times a week can be very feasible. Cooking and enjoying meals as a family can enable you to have more control over what you are consuming, both what you buy at the store and what you put in your body. An added value to eating meals at home and with family is that you avoid that fast food trap. When you are hurrying from appointment to appointment, those golden arches may beckon like an accessible beam of light. Keep on driving-your cholesterol will thank you. Fast food chains may have started to offer slightly more healthy options for its consumers, but it’s still not great for you. So many of the foods are heavily processed, fried in oil and slapped with high-caloric sauces. If you often fall prey to stopping for a quick bite, carry healthy snack foods in your car like almonds, carrots and hummus, or even an all-in-one snack like a Clif Bar or Odwalla Bar.
Localmotion
The Slow Food Movement is reaching into far corners of the United States at a less than snail-like pace. What is this movement about? It incorporates some of what is touched upon earlier, slowing down to enjoy good, healthy food, but it’s also about keeping your food local. So often food is shipped to grocery stores around the country and even world, having to travel thousands of miles in the process. Not only does this mean it costs an arm and leg in transportation costs and environmental impact, but it also means your food has to be heavily grown and treated with chemicals to ensure it will survive the trip. Look for locally grown food options. If you are fortunate enough to live in a more rural area, you may have countless farmers around you growing a cornucopia of healthy vegetables. For more urban areas, you should be able to find a farmer’s market featuring everything from vegetables to locally grown meats, eggs and cheese. It may take a little research, but you might have terrific food options right under your nose, and buying those products will help support your local community and economy. Good for the body and soul.
Keep you and yours healthy and happy requires across the board knowledge. Another way to do this is to know your health insurance options, whether you are a senior, a young family or a family of one living with your family of pets.
photo credit: brew ha ha
Tags: food options, health insurance options, health options, healthy diet, healthy eating, obesity, overweight, slow food, vegan, vegetarian
May 4th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I am a holistic nutrition counselor and an looking to partner with a health insurance company to improve the health and happiness of people which will in turn bring about improved health and lower insurance costs.
Please call me to discuss how I can support your organization in helping your members and subscribers in achieving optimal health.
Respectfully,
Mary Jo Briggs, MScEd, HHC
Holistic Nutrition Counselor
May 25th, 2009 at 4:00 am
It’s good to see sensible dietry information on the web. There’s so much “instant gratification”, it makes a change to read the facts.
Tim
November 6th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I started working out 45min a day 5 times a week, and at first I would just starve myself, I would eat like an apple and some juice, for the day. I lost weight, but once the weekend hit I totally caved, and I was like oh well I can just diet again once the week starts, but I would really like to know what food and how much of it I should eat.