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:
- Replacing whole milk with skim or 2%, both in recipes and for
drinking - Snacking on sorbet or low fat frozen yogurt instead
of premium ice cream - Spraying pans with nonfat cooking spray
instead of using butter or margarine - Replacing high fat cuts
of meat with leaner ones - Eating more low fat fish and less red
meat - 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.