Monday, July 15, 2013

HEALTHY EATING PLAN

Extracted from “New Straits Times – 10th July 2013”

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Healthy eating is important for our mental and physical growth, and to maintain good health. It is one of the best things you can do for yourself and it is not about strict nutrition philosophies, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love.

   Eating correctly means consuming the right quantities of foods from all food groups in order to lead a healthy life. Healthy eating also protects you from diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, and rotting teeth.

   Starting with learning new ways to eat, such as adding more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and cutting back on foods that have a lot of fat, salt, and sugar.

   We all need a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, fibre, vitamins, and minerals to sustain a healthy body. Vegetables and fruit can provide carbohydrates, Vitamin C and A, iron, and fibre that your body needs for a healthy diet and life style. Here’s how to eat healthy:

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Monitor your fat intake – Each fat gram contains nine calories so by reading the total calories on a food and knowing the quantity of fat, you can estimate the fat percentage in the food. This should be low as possible, and by no means exceed 30%.

Reduce your salt intake, as over-consumption of salt is one of the causes of obesity. Reduce means cutting your salt intake down to half what it was last year.

Change from table butter to cholesterol free butter – if you have a choice why not go for it, any way it is healthier for you and tastes just the same. Bear in mind that these small changes can go a long way towards weight reduction.

Bake your food without fat – Baking is by far a healthier method of preparing food than frying. Baking requires lesser oil or fat.

Use a non-stick frying pan for your cooking so that you can cut down on an unnecessary greasing. The main goal is avoid eating fat as much as possible, and a non-stick pan is the perfect solution to reducing your consumption of fat.

Boil your vegetables instead of cooking them, or even better, eat them fresh. However, if you do not like eating your vegetables as it is, try steaming it without adding anything at all. This is probably the healthiest way to eat cabbages, cauliflowers, and a host of other vegetables.

Eat parsley often – Parsley is a great herb to snack between meals, as it contains quite a few vitamins, plus it will freshen your breath.

Choose lower fat substitutes, as these will help weight loss and are healthier for your heart. Fats do have nutrients, but the calories they pack outweigh their benefits, unlike proteins and carbohydrates, so cut down on them where you can.

Avoid going on crash diets – They don’t work, and actually will ruin the work you have done to lose pounds. Crash diets are not healthy for you, as they make you think you lose a few pounds quickly but once you stop, you will gain everything back and more. Crash diets are not meant for the long-term, which means any results you see will go away and possibly hurt you.

Make it a habit to chew all foods thoroughly at least eight to 12 times. This is important because it will add saliva to the food and saliva is critical to the digestion of sugar. Many people have a bad habit of eating so fast, as if they were swallowing it. This reduces the saliva added to the food, which reduces the amount of nutrients our stomach can absorb from.

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