The food choices you make everyday affects your health and how you feel today and in the future. Good nutrition helps play a major role in helping you lead a healthy lifestyle. When you combine a healthy diet with physical activity, your diet can help you reach and maintain a healthy weight and help to reduce your risk of chronic conditions plus create a healthy lifestyle.
Creating and maintaining healthy eating habits doesn’t have to be hard or impossible. If you start by incorporating small changes into your daily habits, this can make a big impact on your eating patterns and create lasting, healthy eating habits. Try to incorporate at least six of the following suggestions into your diet by just adding one new suggestion week.
Combine Half Your Plate With Fruits And Vegetables
Eat the colors of the rainbow! Choose red, orange, and dark-green vegetables along with other vegetables in your meals. Add in fruit to your meals as part of a main or side dish or as dessert. The more colorful you make your plate, the more likely you are to get the vitamins, minerals, and fiber your body needs to be healthy.
Variety Of Lean Protein Foods
Choose select protein foods groups that include not only meat, poultry, and seafood, but also dry beans or peas, eggs, nuts, and seeds. Select leaner cuts of ground beef (where the label says 90% lean or higher), turkey breast, or chicken breast.
Look At The Sodium Content In Foods
Use the Nutrition Facts label to choose lower sodium varieties of foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals. Select canned foods labeled “low sodium,” “reduced sodium,” or “no salt added.” When you make healthier low sodium foods choices this can help make a difference with high blood pressure and other possible health challenges.
Drink Water Instead Of Sugary Drinks
Drink water to cut back on unnecessary sugar and calories from sugary drinks. Soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks are a major source of added sugar and calories in American diets. To add flavor to your water, add a slice of lemon, lime, apple, or fresh herbs like mint or basil. When you spice up your water with these healthy fruits and herbs you have now discovered a whole new way to enjoy the water you consume!
Eat Some Seafood
Seafood has protein, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids (heart-healthy fat). We should try to eat at least eight ounces a week of a variety of seafood. Children can eat smaller amounts of seafood. We can choose from a variety of Seafood that includes fish such as salmon, tuna, and trout, and shellfish such as crab, mussels, and oysters.
Choose Healthy Fats
Cut back on saturated fats that are highly heated and very unhealthy! The major sources for Americans are cakes, cookies, and other desserts (often made with butter, margarine, or shortening). For example, some of these include pizza, processed and fatty meats (e.g., sausages, hot dogs, bacon, ribs); and ice cream.
Other Healthy Habits That Could Help You Live a Healthier Life!
- Do not smoke
- Maintain a healthy weight.
- Exercise at least 30 minutes a day.
- Eat a healthy diet high in fruit, vegetables, and whole grains, low in red meat, saturated fats, and sugar.
Health Studio Labs and its materials are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. All material on Health Studio Labs is provided for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider for any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health-related programs.