dash-diet-tips.com

Jason Hulott1 asked:


The size zero debate - where we have seen celebrities starve themselves down to what they consider is an attractive weight - is a hot topic at the moment. Appalling images of stick-thin celebrities and other figures in the public eye has sparked off a huge debate as to whether you can be a size zero and still follow a healthy diet.

Many of these famous actresses and models etc insist that they eat “just like anyone else” and reel off a list of their daily diet that includes chicken, pasta, potatoes, salad and even the odd ‘naughty’ treat such as bar of chocolate, pizza or a glass of wine

And while undoubtedly there really are a small - a very small - minority of women who are naturally stick thin no matter what they eat, for the ‘lollipop’ (ie big head on a tiny body) ladies we see in the media, they really aren’t following a healthy diet.

Starving themselves in order to ‘look good’ down to the size of a seven year old boy can have dramatic health consequences. Fasting or not eating enough food can cause periods to stop, bad skin and hair and whole list of horrifying symptoms - including death.

In September 2006, the 22 year old model Luisel Ramos died days after appearing on the catwalk. Newspapers reported how she was told that if she lost a “significant amount” of weight (she was 5ft 9in tall and weighed 7 stone when she died according to the Daily Mail newspaper) she would succeed as a model.

You don’t have to be stick thin in order to be fashionable. A grown woman with a body that has been starved in order to resemble that of a young boy is not attractive and is not healthy.

In fact, it’s more important to put the right food inside your body by following a wholesome, healthy diet and nature will do the rest and you’ll find your ideal size.

And if you are overweight or your clothes are starting to feel a bit tighter, then there are sensible diets that you can follow in order to get to your ideal weight. Missing meals or fasting are not an option.

Similarly, for the naturally thin ladies among us, by following a nutritious, healthy diet, you can ensure that you keep yourself in the optimum of health.



Shredder

Edward Chen asked:


Needless to say, cholesterol can cause major problems for the heart. When cholesterol is found in the bloodstream, the vessels become clogged. This is due to too much plaque created by cholesterol. At which state, the blood won’t be able to freely travel all over the body. When this happens, the required amount of nutrients and oxygen won’t reach the vital organs. And this condition would result in the malfunction of the organs. Sooner or later, the body would fail. The heart would try to keep that from happening by overworking itself. It would pump blood doubly hard just to get it to the right places. But later on, the heart would suffer the strain. Heart ailments would soon occur. Older individuals are more prone to heart concerns because their heart had functioned so much throughout their lifespan. However, all people, including younger individuals, should consider following a low cholesterol diet for a stronger heart.

Actually, it’s easy to create customized low cholesterol recipes. The rule of thumb is to use only food items having none to low cholesterol level. There are also some cooking and preparation techniques to follow, so that you can ensure yourself of a healthy meal. The use of oil in your prepared food should be avoided. Go for simple but healthy meals. Examples of food items and ingredients that should be present in your meals are fish, vegetables, and whole grain. Most of the foods belonging to these groups have zero cholesterol content. Use them regularly as an ingredient to your meals. And then you can live healthily.

If you have absolutely no idea as to where to start preparing your meals, here are good suggestions:

Dairy Low Cholesterol Diet Tip:

Your taste buds may want some dairy, especially during breakfast. However, these food items have high cholesterol content. But even so, you can restrict yourself to consuming low amounts of milk, yogurt, and cheese every now and then. However, you should try to avoid creams and margarine. Block them off the ingredients list of your prepared food, whenever possible. Instead, look for healthier alternatives to them. Limit your dairy essential intake. The American Heart Association requires individuals to intake no more than three servings only the necessary low-fat dairy everyday.

Oil Low Cholesterol Diet Tip:

Almost all ingredients require a dash of oil when preparing or cooking foods. This is the reason why it is a little too hard to remove oil from your low cholesterol diet plan. But if you must use oil, you’ve got to be very careful in your choices. Whenever possible, buy the one that has the least cholesterol content. Your best choice is safflower oil. Even so, you must restrict yourself to taking a maximum of eight tablespoons of this oil in a day.

Grains, Fruits, and Vegetables Low Cholesterol Diet Tip:

As far as a low cholesterol diet is concerned, wholegrain, fruits, and vegetables will compose a good part of it. The American Heart Association advises 6 servings of wholegrain, a minimum of five servings of vegetables, and four or more servings of fruits everyday. These three food groups should comprise your daily low cholesterol diet. So if you don’t like eating these foods much, you should start training yourself to like them.



Milan

Paul I Costelo asked:


Okay so maybe that’s an exaggeration. After all there are thousands of foods that are good for you and millions that are bad !! There are top twenty lists for muscle building, for endurance, for speed, for losing weight, for every contingency. These are the top twenty foods, in my view ,which can contribute to general health, a healthy diet, keeping illness at bay and in some cases helping you live longer. Although there’s 20 they’re not in any particular order. In this article I’ll be covering my top ten. Look for the follow up which continues with numbers 11-20.

So let’s start off with:

1.Chocolate: Sorry ,only joking !! Its not chocolate but the raw cacao bean which is the main ingredient of chocolate. Whilst chocolate is really not a good contributor to a healthy diet this bean is fantastic ! It contains anti-oxidants that protect the cardio-vascular system, tryptophan which makes you feel great, magnesium and potassium as well as dopamine a neurotransmitter which can help you get motivated. Use the raw bean in yogurt, fruit salad, desserts, smoothies and just about anything else you fancy.

2.The number 2 ingredient towards maintaining a healthy lifestyle is one of the cheapest foods on the planet watercress. This great little food contains lots of Vitamin C, calcium, folic acid and iron. It will even help protect you from cancer as it also contains phenylethyl isothiocyanate , a cancer fighting ingredient.

3.Broccoli weighs in at number 3. One of the most under rated superfoods and possibly the least popular as many people think it tastes bland, this vegetable can also help you live longer. Like water cress it can help prevent cancer as it contains Indole-3-Carbinol. Also like water cress it has lots of calcium,and iron as well as sulphur. Why buy detoxifying remedies-this food will do it all for you !

4.Alfalfa Sprouts: at number 4 the humble alfalfa sprout is great for having a healthy lifestyle. This contains so much stuff that’s good for you that you’ll be bouncing with energy and vitality. Included are : Vitamin K, B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, calcium, as well as amino acids and iron. I’ll ask you again: why buy expensive vitamin supplements when you can buy these ?

5.Beetroots- love ‘em or hate ‘em these come in at number five. The green leafy tops are great for a healthy diet- they contain calcium, iron and beta-carotene. They’re also a great source of vitamin A , potassium and manganese. To finish off with beetroot is also meant to improve your circulation, purify the blood and detoxify your system. Wow !

6.Nettles: Not a romantic food I know but nettles can help you achieve a healthy diet. They can give you energy, and reduce water retention and high blood pressure. Not bad for starters but they also contain iron, potassium and vitamin C as well as cleansing the bowels, the blood and the urinary tract.

7.Ginger: ginger has been used for hundreds of years to help treat sickness and nausea. But did you know that it can also treat indigestion and bad circulation. It can boost the immune system and if you grate it into honey and lemon it will help you fight off colds and get rid of mucus.

8.Hemp seeds; weighing in at 8 to help you with a healthy lifestyle is the humble hemp seed. These have Vitamin E as well as essential fats Omega 3 and Omega 6. Eat them with salad, on their own or sprinkled liberally with sweet potato, soup or just about anything else you fancy.

9.Flax seeds: Sprinkle these on salads and yoghurts. They contain Omega 3 fats and a gel that lubricates the bowel. Not pretty but effective! They can also help lower blood pressure and help balance female hormones as they contain lignans.

10.Artichokes: Great for helping you to keep to a healthy diet. These have been used to stimulate liver cell regeneration and to help stop fatty plaques building up inside the walls of the arteries, which causes high blood pressure.

So what do you think? Are these superfoods or not ? Cancer curing, aids to help you keep a healthy lifestyle. And cheap and easy to buy. What more could you possibly want? In my next article I’ll deal with numbers eleven to twenty. Coming soon.



Ian

Valerie Slaugther asked:


A recent study from the Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere discovered that if protein or monounsaturated fat are replaced in your diet for some carbohydrates, it could reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels substantially. This reduction in blood pressure and cholesterol would result in a significant reduction in overall risk of heart disease.

Imagine, just by changing about 10 percent of carbohydrate calories in the diet to either protein-rich food, mostly from plant sources, or to monounsaturated fats, contained in olive and canola oil, provided a major benefit to the heart according to the Johns Hopkins team.

According to internist Lawrence Appel, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and lead author of the study, “Our study provides strong evidence that replacing some carbohydrate with either protein or monounsaturated fat has important health benefits. There is already agreement that reducing saturated fat lowers risk for heart disease, but the question of which macronutrient to emphasize has been controversial.”

However, Dr. Appel made it clear that his study did not support diets such as the Atkins diet, which is extremely high-saturate-fat, low-carbohydrate and not a healthy diet plan.

Three healthy diets were evaluated that differed mainly in the amount of macronutrients—protein, fat and carbohydrate—that provide calories used for energy in the body. All of the diets were low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, and rich in fruits, vegetables, fiber, potassium and other minerals.

One diet was a traditional healthy diet rich in carbohydrate, while the other two diets had approximately 10 percent of their carbohydrates replaced with either monounsaturated fat or protein. It should be noted that about half of the protein came from plants.

“All three diets reduced overall heart disease risk, lowering blood pressure and improving cholesterol levels,” says Appel. “But the protein and monounsaturated fat diets had an edge over the carbohydrate-rich diet.”

These findings by the Hopkins study, called the Optimal Macronutrient Intake Trial to Prevent Heart Disease (OmniHeart), presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005 and published simultaneously in the Journal of the American Medical Association, underscore the significant benefits from making dietary changes, the researchers say.

From the study, it was determined that overall, the protein-rich diet, derived from plant and animal sources, decreased cardiovascular disease risk by 21 percent. “Many people equate protein with meat, but it is not the only source of protein,” said study co-author Phyllis McCarron, M.S., R.D., a dietitian at Hopkins.

“Excellent plant sources of protein are beans, nuts, seeds and certain grains.”

In addition, the monounsaturated fat diet, enriched with olive and canola oils, as well as various nuts and seeds, decreased risk by almost 20 percent.

The carbohydrate-rich diet used was similar to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH diet, which Appel helped develop in 1997 and decreased risk by roughly 16 percent.

The OmniHeart study lasted about three years, and researchers enlisted 164 generally healthy adults, both men and women ages 30 and over.

“Because of the huge risk of stroke and heart attack in African Americans, the results are particularly applicable to this group, who made up roughly 55 percent of study participants,” said study co-author Jeanne Charleston, R.N., a research associate at Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. Charleston adds that all participants either had high blood pressure (almost 20 percent) or were on the verge of having high blood pressure.

Participants ate all of their food – including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks—from one of the three diets in six-week intervals. After a two-to-four-week break, participants started the six-week feeding period over again, this time with a different diet. The process was repeated until all participants ate all three.

During this process, the researchers monitored each participant’s levels of blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides on each diet.

These measurements were then factored into a standard mathematical model, called the Framingham risk equation, for estimating heart disease risk.

The OmniHeart study results, according to Appel, reconfirm the powerful effects of a diet-based approach to improving someone’s cardiovascular risk profile, for blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and lowering their overall risk of heart disease.

So, if you really want to improve your overall health, and more specifically, your cardiovascular health, you need to pay more attention to your diet.



Edward

Josh Neumann asked:


Let’s cut right to the chase-most people’s diet today is pathetic. The reason that so many people end their lives in poor health and disease infested is due to a lifetime of poor eating habits.

So why do so many people spend their whole life eating garbage, even when they know there is a better way? Simply, they believe that eating according to healthy diet plans is too difficult a process, and as a result they never get started.

Actually, once you’ve begun eating the right foods and feeling the health benefits it provides, you will be very encouraged and you will simply want to eat more and more healthy foods, and less and less of the junk food you used to eat. In fact, the foods you used to consume will begin to look very unappealing to you.

The best healthy diet plans include raw foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes. The reason these are so good for you is that they contain enzymes which your body needs to help itself digest the food. Whenever food is cooked at temperatures over 118 degrees Fahrenheit, the enzymes cannot survive.

Therefore, whenever you eat a cooked meal, your body spends a lot of time manufacturing its’ own enzymes to aid in the digestion process; that is why you feel so tired after eating a cooked meal. Some cooked food will not hurt you, but keep in mind that at least 75% of the foods you consume should be raw.

If you already have that feeling of dread that comes with changing something you love, here is a way to ease the burden and actually make it fun and enjoyable. First of all, establish your goals; where do you want to be at the end of this process?

Do you want to lose 35 pounds within a year’s time? Be able to run 5 miles? Have 8% body fast? Try to make the goals measurable. Simply saying, “I want to feel better,” won’t give you much of an incentive.

Now that this is established, break the goals down into small chunks that are very achievable. Instead of attempting to change your diet overnight, instead maybe try to eat just one healthy meal a week, consisting primarily of raw foods. The next week, try 2 meals, then 3, and so on.

Absolutely nobody accomplishes a goal that they try to establish overnight. You will not change a lifetime of poor eating habits with the flick of a button. Ask anybody who’s ever set a goal and achieved it; they did so by breaking it down into small, manageable chunks that they could focus.

After a very short time of eating these raw foods and healthy diet plans, you will quickly notice your energy picking up, you will need far less sleep, and you will be healthy and alert all day long. Quite simply, without good health you can never achieve all the things you were meant to; let raw foods help you reach your goals in life. Changing to the raw food diet will likely be one of the best decisions you’ve ever made.



Canoas

Steven Godlewski asked:


Society has grown radical about their weight loss programs. The desire for fitness has clouded the fact that weight loss should also include a healthy diet plan to achieve the long term weight loss benefits. As a result, many weight loss programs have sprung up on the internet, in gyms, spas and weight loss programs all over.

You may not have to go to the gym, spa or any weight loss program center and spend much just to slim down or obtain that longed for sexy body. There are many books available in the bookstore, which offer weight loss programs that are convenient and for free, of course the books are not a complete solution. These weight loss programs, or diet plans are gaining immense popularity through publicity, testimonials and reviews.

Before choosing which weight loss programs to follow, read these summaries about the most popular diet plans. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution; by Dr. Atkins: This weight loss program encourages high protein diet and a trim down on the carbohydrates. You can feast on vegetables and meat but should fast on bread and pasta. You are not restricted against fat intake so you can pour on the salad dressing and freely spread on the butter. After the diet plan, you may find yourself lacking in fiber and calcium yet high in fat. Intake of grains and fruits are also limited.

Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet; by Drs. Heller: This diet plan advocates low carbohydrate consumption. The weight loss program depends on eating meats, vegetables and fruits, dairy and grain products. However, warns against taking in too many carbohydrates. Your meals are too high on fats.

Choose to Lose; by Dr. Goor: The weight loss program restrains fat intake. You are given a “fat” budget. The weight loss program does not pressure you to watch your carbohydrate intake. Dr. Goor encourages eating meat and poultry as well as low-fat dairy and seafood. An approval is also given on eating vegetables, fruits, cereals, bread and pasta. This weight loss program is fairly healthy with good amounts of fruits and vegetables as well as saturated fats. Watch triglyceride levels though; if high, trim down the carbohydrates and eliminate more of the fats.

The DASH Diet: A diet plan that suggests moderate amounts of fat and protein intake and high on carbohydrates. Primarily designed to lower blood pressure, the diet plan follows the pyramid food guide and encourages high intake of whole wheat grains as well as fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy. Some dieters think the diet plan advocates too much eating to procure significant weight loss.

Eat More, Weigh Less; by Dr. Ornish: This weight loss program suggests primarily vegetarian and strictly low-fat. Gives the approval of “glow” foods but warns against non-fat dairy and egg whites. This diet plan is poor in calcium and restricts consumption of healthy foods like seafood and lean poultry.

Eat Right for Your Type: Weight loss program that is based on your blood type, recommends plenty of meat for people with the blood type O. Diet plans for some blood types are nutritionally imbalanced and too low in calories. For the record, there is no documented proof that blood type affects dietary needs.

The Pritkin Principle: Focused on trimming the calorie density in eating by suggesting watery foods that make you feel full. Eating vegetables, fruits, oatmeal, pasta, soups, salads and low-fat dairy is okay. The diet plan limits protein sources to lean meat, seafood and poultry. Although it is healthy by providing low amounts of saturated fat and rich amounts of vegetables and fruits, it is also low on calcium and limits lean protein sources.

Volumetrics: For low-density calorie eating. The weight loss program recommends the same foodstuff as Pritkin but restricts fatty or dry foods like popcorn, pretzels and crackers. This diet plan is reasonably healthy given the high amounts of fruits and vegetables as well as being low in calorie density and saturated fats.

The Zone: Weight loss program that is moderately low on the carbohydrates yet moderately high on the proteins. The diet plan encourages low-fat protein foods like fish and chicken plus veggies, fruits and grains. It is also healthy but lacking in grains and calcium.

Weight Watchers: Weight loss program that is high in carbohydrates and suggests moderation on fats and proteins. A very healthy diet plan, unless you are a diabetic. However, it allows the dieter to plan his own meal rather than give him a set diet plan to follow.



Lucio

Alliance asked:


 

To understand hypertension (also known as high blood pressure), it is important to understand the heart. The heart is a pump. It pumps blood through our arteries, sending nourishment to all parts of our body. A pump works by generating pressure. But too much pressure is a problem. Too much force pushing against arterial walls, called hypertension, can strain the arteries and the heart itself.

 

Hypertension contributes to heart attacks and strokes by damaging the inner walls of the arteries and by speeding up the inflammatory process. Hypertension is the number one risk factor for strokes.

 

Why is hypertension a problem?

 

The higher your blood pressure, the higher your risk of stroke, heart attack, congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and even, new research has found, dementia. Hypertension contributes to heart attacks and strokes by damaging the inner walls of the arteries and by speeding up the inflammatory process. Hypertension is the #1 risk factor for strokes.

 

How did you get hypertension?

 

It is easy to get hypertension if you live in the United States and other affluent countries, like England, where most citizens eat diets high in salt and fat and low in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. An Americans lifetime risk of developing hypertension is close to 90%, reported the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in 2004.

 

What are the symptoms of hypertension?

 

That is part of the problem. Hypertension usually causes no symptoms, so over time, damage to your arteries, heart, and brain can occur before the condition is diagnosed.

 

What is the right diet for hypertension treatment?

 

Several studies funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have found that the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches To Stop Hypertension), which is very similar to the Pritikin Eating Plan, lowers blood pressure as well as or better than any drug. Both DASH and Pritikin promote menus that are low in fats, salt, cholesterol, red meat, and sweets; high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans; and moderate in seafood, poultry, nuts, and low fat or nonfat dairy foods.

 

Meditation

 

Relaxation techniques like yoga, transcendental meditation or any kinds of meditation are found to be very useful methods to control high blood pressure.

 

Exercise

Regular exercise will help to lower the blood pressure. Start with mild exercise like walking and slowly increase your intensity and duration. Rigorous exercise is a risk of having heart attack. Moderate exercise or walking or jogging helps to reduce the diastolic pressure by about 15 - 20 mm of Hg.

 



Ade

Paul Hata asked:


Years ago such feminine symptoms were quite respectable and were attributed to lovesickness. Doctors had a name for the disease; it was called chlorosis. Nowadays these pallid wallflowers are more frequently diagnosed as victims of nutritional anemia.

Red blood gives color to romance and imparts a rosy glow to the spectacles through which we view the world. Red blood is largely a matter of assimilated iron, and a good many people, especially women, fail to get enough of this romantic mineral.

Consider the career of one of your work-crazy red blood cells.

In the lungs it grasps a big load of oxygen, dashes back through a portion of your 7,000-mile-long circulatory system, dumps its oxygen into a hungry cell, picks up a return load of carbon dioxide and hustles back to the lungs to repeat the cycle. It is good for about 60,000 round trips before it finally wears out.

Oxygen is vital in keeping your tissues alive and rarin’ to go. But if you don’t keep enough iron on tap to manufacture a billion brand new red cells per minute, your blood can’t carry enough oxygen to keep you functioning at your best. It’s as if you took half breaths instead of full ones. You can’t muster enough energy for a respectable lovesick sigh.

You’re too tired out to smile at the boy friend’s puns and the thought of jitterbugging around with him is unbearable. So maybe he goes hunting around for some High-Haemoglobin Hannah who can keep up the pace.

Not that you need such a lot of iron, but you need it every day and even the richest foods do not contain it in large amounts. Once a deficiency is established it is all but impossible to overcome it in reasonable time through ordinary diet. Because of monthly losses, women require more iron than men and are more commonly the victims of nutritional anaemia.

By itself, iron is no great shakes as a go-getter. It is more inclined to lie on its back under a tree. Copper is a sort of truant officer that rounds it up and blackjacks it into going to work in the red cells. Cobalt, according to late word from the laboratories, also has a part in red blood cell formation.

Luckily, iron and copper occur pretty much in the same foods, and you hardly need worry about cobalt deficiencies. Tops among blood-building foods are liver, calf, pork, beef or chicken. Red meats are valuable too. Surprisingly enough, ordinary molasses the blacker the better turns out to be unexpectedly rich in assimilable iron. Three tablespoons of molasses supplies about one-third the daily iron needs. Eggs and apricots are superb blood-builders too.

Leafy green vegetables contain considerable iron, but not all of it is easily absorbed and it is rarely that such foods are consumed in great bulk. Whole wheat flour contains about three times the iron of white flour, although the new fortified products contain added iron that brings the values to practically the same figure. Oranges, the pulp, not the juice contain fair iron. Milk and green vegetables assure ample copper intake; there is iron in milk, too, and although it is in small amount it is easily assimilated. Liver and oysters rank high in copper and nuts, cereals, and dried fruits contain substantial amounts.

Pernicious anaemia is different from the common nutritional type, in that it is caused by specific deficiency of some unknown element. Late word from the laboratories indicates that this unknown factor is a protein it’s not our fault if those important fellows keep bobbing up in the nutritional story. Whatever the factor is, liver contains it and liver extracts are the accepted form of treatment.

Anaemia is sometimes caused, too, by lack of Vitamin C, through loss of blood caused by haemorrhage characteristic of scurvy, or by interfering with the blood-forming cells in the marrow of the long bones.



Caroline

Uchenna Ani-Okoye asked:


One of the most frequently cited reasons that diets and attempts at healthy eating fail is boredom. Many people simply do not know how to keep a healthy diet interesting day after day, and it can be quite a challenge.

Given the huge variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meats and other healthy foods at the local grocery store, however, it is definitely possible to create exciting, nutritious meals that will keep boredom at bay.

You’re Key to Healthy Eating

The key to the success of any plan for healthy eating is to eat what you like, but to exercise moderation when it comes to the less healthy foods. Improving your level of health and fitness does not mean forgoing that piece of chocolate cake, for instance. It does mean, however, limiting you to one piece. A healthy diet contains all types of foods, including carbohydrates, proteins, and even fats. The key is choosing foods that provide the best combination of taste and nutrition. After all, if your diet consists of foods you hate, you will not stick with it.

The revised USDA food pyramid contains five major food groups - grains, vegetables, fruits, milk and dairy, and meat and beans. When choosing foods from these groups, it is important to eat a wide variety of foods from every food group. Doing so will not only give you a great deal of variety and keep boredom from setting in, but it will provide the best nutritional balance as well. In addition the widely known micronutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin C, etc. all foods contain a variety of macronutrients, like fats, proteins, fibre and water. Though present in extremely tiny amounts, micronutrients are vitally important to good health. That is why a healthy, varied diet is so important.

In addition, when choosing foods from within the various food groups, some choices are naturally better and healthier than others. For instance, choosing skim or 2% milk instead of full fat whole milk is a good way to cut down on both fat and calories. And choosing poultry or lean meat is a great way to get the protein you need every day without extra fat, cholesterol and calories.

Likewise cereals and breads that carry the whole grain label are healthier than those who do not. Even in the world of fruits and vegetables some choices are better than others. For instance, peaches packed in heavy syrup add unnecessary sugar to the diet; while those packed in water or juice provide only good nutrition.

There has been a trend lately to add vitamin fortification to food, and this can sometimes be a good way to maximize nutrition. It is important to remember, however, that proper nutrition comes from a healthy diet, not from vitamin supplements. It is fine to buy calcium fortified cereal, but the bulk of your calcium intake should still come from milk, dairy products and green leafy veggies.

Choosing the Best Foods

Knowing the five major food groups and how much of each to eat every day is only part of the picture. The other part is choosing the best foods from within those food groups. That means things like choosing the leanest cuts of meat, using egg substitutes instead of whole eggs, choosing the freshest fruits and vegetables, etc.

Even with fruits and vegetables, some choices are better than others. Some fruits, such as avocados, for instance, are packed with fat and calories. It is important to check the nutritional qualities of the fruits and vegetables you buy, and not simply assume that all fruits and vegetables are equally healthy.

One way to maximize nutrition while minimizing cost is to buy fruits and vegetables that are in season. Fruits and vegetables that are in season are usually quite a bit cheaper than those that must be shipped hundreds or even thousands of miles, and they are generally much fresher too. Of course, depending on where you live, there may be varieties of fruits and vegetables that are not available locally, so the northerner in search of citrus fruits will just have to watch the sales and buy accordingly.



Mestara

Ramone Stevenson asked:


It seems every time we turn around there’s a new diet showing up that’s going to make us skinny like those models we see on TV. Trouble is too skinny is no more healthy than weighing too much. Healthy diets make healthy people and these 6 ways to shed those extra pounds will have you eating healthy.

1. Loose The Mindset

If you really want to loose those pounds forever you need to change the way you think. You need to retrain your brain about how it thinks when it comes to exercise and healthy diets. Stop thinking short term and start planning into the future.

You have to build habits that are going to be with you for the long haul and that means you have to loose your current mindset about healthy diets. Good habits take time to build but once you do watching your weight will be a thing of the past.

You will never loose weight permanently by dieting. You can only permanently loose weight with healthy diets that are regular meals consisting of good nutrition and good eating habits.

2. Mind Over Muscle

Never give up your muscle mass no matter what you mind is telling you. In fact to permanently loose weight you need healthy diets and healthy exercise. Body builders fully understand this association which is why they don’t have any fat. Of course that doesn’t mean we want you to look like a body builder.

Muscles burn calories faster when you are exercising which is why weight training is so important if you want to loose weight permanently. Your weight will also go up as your muscles develop because muscles weigh more than fat so you’ll weigh more and look thinner.

3. Reduce Slowly

This might be the most important tip of all - do not drastically reduce your calorie intake because when you do your body panics and thinks it’s being starved so it begins to store everything as fat. Instead what you need to is reduce your calories slowly. So reduce your calories by about 500 and increase your activity dramatically with both aerobic activity and weights.

4. Burn Baby Burn

It’s much more important to increase activity than to decrease calories. When you increase activities you burn those calories and the secret is you must always burn more than you eat. Don’t be in a hurry - combine increased activity with healthy diets for healthy weight loss that will last forever.

5. Figure It Out

You need to determine what the minimal calories are that you can take in before your starvation mode kicks in. Then you need to make sure you do not drop your calorie intake below that point. Your healthy diets should make up your calorie intake.

6. Eat A Little A Lot

Eating many small meals throughout the day is much better than eating three huge meals. Snack all day long on healthy foods. This way you never kick in your starvation response and you burn up the calories quickly eating your healthy diets.

These tips to healthy diets and healthy living will have you shedding the pounds slowly but continuously and this type of weight loss will be permanent. Isn’t’ that what you want?



Elton