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Why and How to Eat Healthy?
If you are familiar with the phrase ‘garbage in – garbage out’ then you have mastered the basic concept of nutrition! What you eat plays a role in your physical, emotional and mental health. Creating a food regimen that is appealing and then sticking to it is a challenge for most Americans for several reasons. Let’s learn why and how to eat healthy.
Chief among these is the fact that America has an abundance of food choices that are at our finger tips. Too, restaurants that offer enhanced portion sizes further exacerbate the eating issues we face. In this blog we will consider the why and how to eat healthy.
Why Eat Healthy?
Your food decisions affect your health now and into the future. Healthy eating ensures you can put forth your best performance in everything you do. Healthy food feeds your cells and organs and keeps your body running like a ‘well-oiled’ machine! Conversely, unhealthy eating habits have several negative consequences.
First, it contributes to the epidemic of obesity in the country. Nearly 20% of our children aged 2-19 now fall within the obese category. Secondly, unhealthy eating can lead to a variety of chronic health conditions in both children and adults such as diabetes, high blood pressure and more.
Healthy eating is part of a healthy lifestyle that should include physical activity. Together they will help you maximize your potential and enjoy your life to the fullest.
Why Eat Healthy?
There are multiple sites and organizations that can provide you with a blueprint for healthy eating. You could begin by investigating several of the following sites:
You can also conduct your own search of the internet to learn more about how to create a healthy diet and what should be included. If you have a family, it would be valuable to work together on the process of investigating and developing a healthy diet.
Balanced diets
A balanced diet will ensure your body will intake the proper nutrients to function properly. Here are important points to remember. Calories are a basic concept of nutrition.
A calorie is the measurement of energy found in our foods and beverages. The advisable amount of calories to consumed on a daily basis depends on factors such as weight, height and age. Most nutritional charts will offer calorie information based on the recommended average calorie consumption of 2000.
Macronutrients
There are three important macronutrients required for the human body to perform a variety of functions. These are proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
- Proteins are found in meat and fish, eggs and dairy products.
- Carbohydrates are found in bread, pasta, fruit, potatoes, sugar and more.
- Fats are also found in meat (fatty) as well as butter, nuts, oil and more.
You also require a variety of micronutrients in the form of vitamins and minerals. Chief among these are iron, magnesium, potassium, calcium and Vitamins A-K. If you eat a balanced diet you will likely not need to take a vitamin supplement.
A balanced diet should consist almost entirely of whole – or unprocessed – foods. In other words – fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy and milk that only contain a single ingredient. Whole foods are better because they are nutrient-dense. Processed foods tend to have a lot of artificial ingredients and chemicals. They are often labeled as ‘empty calories’ because they have no nutritional value.
Herbs and spices should be a mainstay of your cooking! They are nutrient-rich and plant based – making them doubly good for you!
Water should be the most common form of fluid ingested on a daily basis. You may also drink tea, milk and coffee. Avoid sugary, artificially-flavored drinks. People are often unaware of the number of calories they add to your diet.
Avoid or limit your intake of:
- trans fats such as fried foods
- processed low-fat products (the label will say ‘low-fat’)
- refined carbs such as white bread
- sugar-based products
- vegetable oils (unharmful in limited quantities)
Portion Sizes and Planning Ahead
Eating healthy requires focus and thoughtfulness. Planning meals and snacks in advance will help to ensure that you and your family are in good condition. Other considerations to take into account include:
Portion sizes are an important part of staying in shape. Certain foods are easy to consume in large amounts. This is one way to gain unwanted calories that lead to becoming overweight. While no one wants to take the time to measure out food – a good idea is to eyeball your amounts. You can eat a ‘fistful’ of carbs, 1 or 2 palm-sized amounts of proteins and only a thumb-ful of fats!
Changing Your Diet to Tasty Alternatives
Have you ever wished that eating delicious junk food would be healthy too, given how easy and willing we are to eat junk food? Well, it is your lucky day because today we will be going through a few products or recipes that taste good but have more value for our health! Finding tasty alternatives like this make it easier to make the correct choices.
Change Your Peanut Butter to Powdered Peanut Butter
Our first suggestion you can try is delicious low calorie, powdered peanut butter.
Certain peanut butter offers proteins as well as heart-healthy body fat, but two tablespoons typically include in between one hundred and eighty as well as two hundred and ten calories from fat – exactly the same present in the bundle associated with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
So you cannot necessarily just turn to reduced-fat types or even alternative-nut butters such as almond as well as cashew and gorge on it, because these choices load up exactly the same caloric impact. What you can do is eat these in moderation or find a low-calorie peanut butter product.
These tend to be powder peanut-butters, which are created by taking out the oil from how peanut butter is regularly made. These are the true low-cal peanut butters which are just forty five calories from fat for 2 tablespoons. Indeed, you need to include drinking water as well as mix. However, many in our testers loved this particular type since you also get control over the texture of the peanut butter. Low-calorie powder peanut butters also have less fat in them.
Change Your Creme Soups to Paleo Soups
Second on the list is a scrumptious paleo tomato soup. This is a great example of how you can change your creme soups into paleo soups by finding alternatives for the dairy portion that makes it creme-like.
Paleo tomato soup has numerous different variations for cremes that you could make use of. There is the routine style which is usually has some dairy product in it. An alternative is much more vegan and made with coconut milk. Coconut milk has numerous wellness perks and can give your tomato soup a special taste. Coconut milk could also offer your physical body a lot of hydration which is good for your skin as well as body in general.
Other individuals just dismiss the creme and simply add water which isn’t really bad if you don’t mind adjusting your palette to a more subtle, mild taste. Simply applying water could additionally be a feasible option. It’s really as much as you believe you require cream or not. Some folks just decide to fail to remember the creme completely and go with all-natural ingredients that are already in the soup. If you have a great soup then the cream could not even be necessary but rather depends on which recipe you are utilizing, as well as how you are making your tomato soup. Soup cream is really an individual point and is up to your taste buds.
Change from High-Cholesterol to Low-Cholesterol Foods
Prepare low cholesterol recipes for healthy eating.
There are different types of cholesterol one should stay clear from. For example, low-density lipoprotein, sometimes called “bad cholesterol” should be avoided. It is best to avoid these because having high cholesterol is really harmful. Poor fats end up blocking arteries, growing oral plaque buildup, and preventing consistent blood flow in the body.
If high cholesterol clogs coronary arteries, a risky heart condition may arise. Plaque collects low-density lipoprotein in our bloodstream as well as your liver. It’s much better to replace high-cholesterol foods in our diet to get hold of good fats rather than bad.
If you already are high in cholesterol, avoid diets that just consist of animal products, such as meats, dairy products, and eggs. It may be difficult but you should consume more vegetables together with fruits because they offer fibers, vitamins, minerals, health supplements, and antioxidants. These should serve as decongestants to the arterial blood vessels clogged by cholesterol.
Change Your Beef to Omega-3 Rich Proteins
The usage of low-fat beef may still contain trans fat so using chicken or turkey may be a better alternative.It would be best to consume omega-3 rich proteins such as fish like mackerel, sardines, salmon, tuna, and herring which all in all reduces cholesterol.
Change Your Vegetable Oil to Olive Oil
Another suggestion is to use healthier oil alternatives such as olive oil as well as vegetable margarine while preparing low cholesterol recipes. It’s always best to eliminate frying the food in oils, and find a means to boil, broil, bake, roast, or steam instead. Finally, highlight more complex carbohydrate-rich foods such as pasta, wheat products, rice, beans, dried peas, and sweet potatoes rather than simple-carbohydrate foods like white bread.
Choosing a healthy lifestyle through our diets does not necessarily mean sacrificing flavor. There will always be a way for us to achieve such a goal if we first take the initiative to at least try different foods and modifications for healthier alternatives.
Eat well and exercise regularly – and you will be on your way to mastering the secret of good living!
