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More Healthy Eating Habits
Thin is not “in”. Healthy eating habits are not about starving
yourself. If anything, healthy eating habits are about feeding our family
adequately with foods selected from the five food groups (more about
this later). When you adopt healthy eating habits and eat the right
foods and in adequate quantities,
a) You feel good,
b) You feel energetic throughout the day
c) Your skin glows in good health
d) Your immune system improves dramatically
e) You have less chances of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.
f) Reduced chances of being depressed
g) Your intellectual ability improves
h) Your memory improves
i) Your body weight is maintained
j) You spend less on medical bills
Preparation for a shift to healthy eating habits:
Think success
Do you have the power to give up that twice-a-week burger and French
fries? Or does your tongue rule you? Of course not! Each of us has the
power and ability to take charge of our health. Whether we want to live
out our future life on a daily diet of pills or be bright and sprightly
with health as good if not better than those at half our age is up to
us.
Once you take the first big step of saying “yes you can”, remember
that from time to time you will crave for some of the junk foods you
loved so much. For such occasions, keep a fruit handy. Any fruit will
do. Have whenever you feel like eating a burger or French fries or
whatever – fruit really does the trick!
Acquire the basic knowledge of healthy foods
This site has a lot of information on what constitutes healthy food
and the quantities you should be eating. Pay special attention to the
Food Chart. It really is not difficult at all. Food is broadly divided
into 5 parts; Grains, Vegetables, Fruit, Milk and the fifth part
consists of Meats and beans. Each part consists of certain healthy food
items and the quantities to be consumed on a daily basis. Once you have
this basic knowledge you are ready to make the transition to good health
by switching over to healthy eating habits.
Now that we know what to eat, let’s change over to healthy eating habits.
Healthy eating habit 1: Cook daily
Any cut or cooked food begins to lose nutrients immediately. All
nutrients are lost approximately 3 hours after cutting or cooking. So
the first healthy eating habit should be to cook daily and not on a
weekly basis.
Healthy eating habit 2: Plan your meals
Planning meals avoids last minute random selection of food. Planning
puts you in control of your diet and in charge of what goes into your
stomach.
Healthy eating habit 3: Eat on time
Your stomach secretes digestive juices at regular intervals in
expectation of food. If it does not get food when it expects it, you
begin to suffer from acidity and other medical problems. Conversely, if
you feed the stomach when it does not expect to be fed, the food remains
undigested for a long time because of the lack of digestive juices. The
production of digestive juices and introduction of food into the
stomach should coincide.
Healthy eating habit 4: Control the portions
When we lay out food on the dinning table, family members’ pickup
their plates and heap food onto their plates. There is little control
over the quantity of food they eat. Also, people tend to pick and choose
and most dislike vegetables. Ideally, you should serve yourself and
each member of the family taking care to see that the portion sizes are
maintained and that each person receives the correct quantity of all the
food on the table. If you have problems with portion sizes, use portion
control plates and scoopers. These are ideal tools for ensuring portion
sizes.
Healthy eating habit 5: Shop at the perimeter of the grocery store
At your next visit to the grocery store take a look at the items that
are stocked at the perimeter of the store. You will be surprised to see
fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, fish, poultry and whole grain
breads i.e. all the healthy foods you need. The interior in contrast is
stocked with processed foods – the kind you should avoid.
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