Posts Tagged ‘index’

If you need to lose weight or want to combat diabetes, heart disease, and a whole host of other health problems that come from eating poorly, then there are some secrets you need to know. Healthy eating is not as complicated or difficult as you may think. In fact, it is a comfortable way to live if you do it correctly.

If you take nothing else away from this, remember this critical fact: it all starts with your thinking! If you go into this saying you are never going to eat those “bad” foods again or you are going cold turkey off the foods you love the most, then you are going to come out with another failure eventually. You need a new approach to healthful living.

Consider the following secrets to help you form a more realistic way of thinking about a healthy diet.

Attitude: This has to be the first secret revealed because it is the most important. How you mentally approach your new lifestyle is going to determine whether you really adopt a healthy eating pattern or fall quickly back into the unhealthy habits.

Start by not thinking of this as a diet. You are going to make some changes in your life for the better and it is going to bring great things into your world. This is not about giving up cookies forever or skipping the cake at your daughter’s graduation party. You have to think long term.

Proper Carbs: This is the only secret you need to know that is related to an actual food group. You could read books on how to create a perfectly balanced diet and all the specific nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body needs and the exact amount to consume every day. But who has time to do that?

If you can focus on replacing unhealthy carbs with healthier varieties, this would be a giant step toward healthy eating.

Let’s look at the wide variety of foods that fall into the “carb” category: white rice, potatoes, whole grain pasta, vegetables, fruit, cake, cookies.

The trick here is to start replacing your sugary treats with fresh fruit to get that sweet taste. Replace refined breads and pasta with whole grain varieties. Add in vegetables and fruits to every single meal.

The more you can weed out the refined and sugary carbs the healthier you are going to be. Remember, it’s not about carb elimination but carb control.

The Glycemic Index is an excellent tool for learning which carbs are better for you than others.

Snacking: This is maybe the most surprising secret for some people. You have to eat to be healthy and that means healthy snacking. Eating more often keeps your blood sugar stable and your metabolism higher throughout the day. The trick is to finding sensible snacks that give your body energy rather than zapping it.

Try to use those healthy carbs to come up with reasonable snacks and make sure to eat something every 3-4 hours, even if it is just a handful of carrots or a piece of fruit.

It’s about moderation, not deprivation. Think of healthy eating as a balancing act. You can have those foods that you love, but not on a daily basis. It’s about good choices most of the time and sensual enjoyment some of the time.

Pepper your life with those unhealthy foods and truly enjoy them, rather than saturating your daily diet with them and feeling guilty over every bite.