Healthy
eating for a healthy body
Healthy eating means many things to many
people, and everyone has different goals for the perfect diet. The key to following a healthy diet is to
find a diet you can stick with for the rest of your life. A diet should not be simply a temporary
change in the way you life, eat and exercise.
Rather, it should be a permanent change that you can live with day in
and day out, year in and year out.
For some people, a healthy diet can be as
simple as increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables in the daily
diet. For others, a radical change,
involving strict control of fat and cholesterol, may be required.
Of course what is needed will depend on the
goal of each individual. The serious
runner in search of greater conditioning will of course have different goals
than the couch potato who is concerned about the possibility of heart disease.
Even though every person will different
goals when it comes to healthy eating, the basic tenets of healthy eating are
the same. The most important thing is to
eat a good variety of foods, while eating less of the bad stuff and more of the
good.
That may sound like an oversimplification,
but it really is that easy. Putting that
simple concept into proactive, however, is the hard part. Everyone wants to eat healthier, but there
are so many temptations in today’s world that healthy eating can be very
difficult. The key is to make healthy
choices as appealing as unhealthy ones.
One way to make healthy foods appealing is
buying a wide variety of exotic fruits at the local supermarket. There are probably varieties of fruits and
vegetables at your local grocery store that you never even heard of
before. Why not make your next trip to
the grocery store an adventure by sampling these exotic offerings?
Experimenting with new recipes is another
great way to bring excitement and adventure to healthy eating. A quick perusal of your favorite low fat or
healthy eating cookbook will likely present you with many fun and exciting
recipes to try. Often a new cookbook, or
a couple of new recipes are all it takes to spur a healthier lifestyle.
It is also important to know that eating
healthier does not necessarily mean making a radical change. There are very simple things you can do, such
as cutting the skin off your chicken breast, or trimming the fat from your
favorite steak, that can result in significant fat reductions and health
improvements. Dieters should not
overlook the importance of these small changes when seeking a healthier diet.
Other examples of small changes resulting
in healthier eating include:
Ø
Replacing
whole milk with skim or 2%, both in recipes and for drinking
Ø
Snacking
on sorbet or low fat frozen yogurt instead of premium ice cream
Ø
Spraying
pans with nonfat cooking spray instead of using butter or margarine
Ø
Replacing
high fat cuts of meat with leaner ones
Ø
Eating
more low fat fish and less red meat
Ø Using egg
substitutes, the kind made from egg whites, in recipes, meals and baking
There are probably hundreds of other such
tips, and they can add up to significant health improvements, whether your goal
is to get fit, lose weight or improve your level of health. No matter who you are or what your current
level of fitness, eating a healthier diet and losing weight may be easier than
you think.
In the end, eating a healthy diet,
improving your level of fitness, and managing your consumption of fat and
cholesterol boils down to common sense.
Depriving yourself of your favorite foods can be counterproductive to a
long term dietary change. Deprivation
leads inevitably to cravings, and that can start a vicious cycle of dieting and
splurging.
It is best to think of healthy eating as a
marathon rather than a sprint. The goal
of any healthy eating program should be to make easy, lifelong changes in the
way you shop, cook and dine. Only by
making changes that you can follow for a lifetime will you truly be able to
enjoy a healthy diet.