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| Healthy Eating Made Simple |
By:
Brad Paul |
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Healthy Eating Made Simple
Healthy eating can be simple, inexpensive, and satisfying! Most people, including myself at one time, put off becoming a healthy eater because they hate the idea of giving up certain foods, establishing a complicated regiment, and the increased cost.
Let me let you in on a huge secret. Eating healthy foods is really an easy practice that can cost you less money and be more enjoyable to eat than your current diet. Let’s break it down.
The basics of a healthy diet takes what you already know about food and reduces or eliminates the bad stuff that you also already know about -- fat, sugar, salt, and highly processed (junk) foods. If you are smart, you can purchase a full month of healthy groceries for less money than you would spend for your usual diet. This is especially true if you add in all the fast food meals and junk food snacks that you buy during any given month. Once your body adjusts to dramatically lower amounts of the bad stuff, and once you gain some knowledge about the amazing benefits of healthy eating on your body and mind, you’ll gain more pleasure from eating than you ever did before.
Part of the pleasure that you’ll feel will come from the satisfaction of taking control of what foods you put into your body. Up until the point when you know that you have taken control, you have given that control to others without really knowing it. You, like everyone else including me, have been brainwashed and manipulated through advertising to eat products created by companies striving for more profits! These companies have well paid teams of individuals who spend their days dreaming up products, tasty mixtures, and clever advertising campaigns to persuade you to buy, consume, and develop a habit.
Until relatively recent times, most of these products were developed with little if any regard to how they affected your health. Their only goal was to create products that sold well because they tasted good and made you feel good. Many of these products delivered on these promises but the pleasures were usually brief and they frequently damaged your body.
One of the best product marketing successes of all time is cigarettes. Here’s a product that can kill you and is also highly addictive. The only thing I have to do as a producer of cigarettes is to persuade you to try it for a while and then I’ve got you hooked! Really hooked!
Here’s a list of some well known products that give you a lot of brief pleasure, have little or no nutritional value, and can be damaging to your health: soft drinks, French fries, potato chips, corn chips, butter, sugar, salt, hamburgers, hotdogs, bacon, candy, ice cream, cookies, pies, and cakes.
In recent years, food companies have attempted to create healthier foods, but many still fool you with cleverly worded messages on their packaging. They use buzzwords like “All Natural,” “Multi Grain,” and “Low Fat” in large letters on the front of their products. Unless you read the list of ingredients on their label, you wouldn’t know that these claims are misleading. For example, multi grain suggests healthy but unless they are multi “whole” grains its not that good for you. Here’s another example. Low fat maybe true, but many manufacturers compensate to create taste by adding an unhealthy amount of sugar and/or salt.
Health advocates are wining the war and consumers are benefiting by having healthier foods and more information about products on their labels. This was brought about by the addition of the “Nutrition Facts” panel, which is required in the United States and other countries. There is also a lot more information about healthy eating available in a myriad of forms.
Once you’ve convinced yourself on the benefits of healthy eating, you’ll find yourself reading the labels on food products, drawn to articles and books on nutrition, and eagerly putting what you’ve learned into practice. The payoff comes in the way that you look and feel. You’ll lose unwanted weight, your complexion will improve, your energy will increase, and your moods will stabilize.
The next step in healthy eating is to learn about what a healthy diet consists of. The second article in this two part series is “Healthy Diet Strategy for Fitness & Quality Living.” It describes the ideal healthy diet and how to make the transition to healthy foods
In order to attain optimal health and fitness, a healthy diet must become a part of your lifestyle. It’s also essential for achieving your body weight, tone, and muscle goals. Your psychological health benefits as well. Healthy eating can help to reduce or eliminate mood swings and depression.
An excellent healthy diet is...
•Low or near zero in fat, sugar, and salt (sodium).
•Low or zero in all dairy products (milk & cheese).
•Low or zero in caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol (beer & wine).
•High in purified drinking water. Replaces all other drinks.
•High in 100% fruit juices. (No added sugar.) Best are acai berry, blueberry, cranberry, and pomegranate. All are high in antioxidants.
•High in 100% vegetable juices. (Low Sodium.) Best are those you juice yourself. A great blend is apples, carrots, celery, beets, tomatoes, cantaloupe or watermelon.
•High in 100% citrus juices. (No added sugar.) Lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit.
•Zero in sodas, colas, soft drinks, or diet of any of these.
•Zero in artificial sugar.
•High in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
•High in tofu, beans, and lentils.
•High in whole grains. Brown rice, bread, and cereals.
•Low or zero in white breads, white rice, and pasta.
•High in fish. Wild fish is usually better than farm grown. Salmon is especially good due to its high content of Omega-3 fatty acids.
•Moderate in chicken (& eggs), turkey, ostrich, and other poultry. Organic cage-free/free-range is usually better.
•Low or zero in beef, pork (zero bacon), and lamb meat.
•Zero in fried foods.
•Low or zero in highly processed foods. Any high fat, sugary or salty bagged or boxed, so called, foods.
Tip: The best way to keep tract of the fat, sugar, and sodium (salt) content in the foods you buy is to get into the habit of reading the “Nutrition Facts” label (above) on food products. Laws in the United States and other countries require this label. Reading this label is crucial to ensuring that you have a healthy diet.
If you’ve never followed a strict healthy diet, then this may seem a little overwhelming. It may at first. But once you learn about the benefits and see the results in the mirror, you’ll get excited about it and want to do more!
There may be fitness enthusiasts who are closely following every other aspect of good health practices except for maintaining a healthy diet. Here’s what many of us forget or ignore. As the human body ages, its ability to burn off and eliminate excess fat and other harmful substances gradually decreases. The outcome is increased weight and a weaker performing body. Radically changing my diet was the last step I took. Weight gain and reduced energy was my motivation.
I’ve been closely following the healthy diet menu that I described above for about 10 years. I indulge a little bit occasionally as a reward to myself or while I’m on vacation, but generally I manage to stay on it 95% of the time. In the beginning, it was quite a struggle because I missed the buttery, sugary, salty, fatty favors in the foods I ate. I found that once I was away from these “alleged” favor enhancers for a while my preferences changed and I started to enjoy the taste of foods without all the extra flavorings.
Here’s a good example. At one point, I could not imagine ever eating a piece of toast without butter. Once my taste buds adjusted to foods without butter and other intense flavorings, I was amazed at the wonderful fragrance and taste of a slice of quality whole gain bread. The same could not be said of low quality, zero benefit, cheap breads. This change in the sensitivity of my taste buds also allowed me to appreciate the taste of fruits and vegetables in a way that I never have in my life! Eating a healthy diet became a pleasure.
Today when I go to a restaurant and I get a dish that unexpectedly contains a lot of butter, salt, sugar, or fat I am instantly repealed and sometimes sicken by it. I’ve learned to politely ask the server a few questions about the food when I go to restaurants now. As far as being invited to eat at the homes of family and friends, I just make sure that I’ve made the “cooks” aware of my healthy diet lifestyle well in advance of any invitations.
A healthy diet is the foundation to fitness. If you workout regularly and you want all your hard work to show on your body, you must pay attention to your diet.
To your health and fitness,
Brad Paul |
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