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Healthy Eating Habits & Fitness!

Healthy eating breakfastHealthy eating breakfast

It is common knowledge that healthy eating and fitness of the body is the secret to good health and longevity. But, due to our hectic lifestyles, we often ignore this simple truth and end up feeling tired with hardly any energy to make it through the day. But if you truly wish to change this bad situation for the better, there is hope. There are a number of ways in which you can fit healthy eating in your busy schedule and undo years of self-indulgence.

An unbalanced diet or one deficient in essential nutrients will make you feel weak, lethargic and reduce your performance to below par. Healthy eating and fitness go hand-in-hand. Nutritionists will tell you that you must eat right to look and feel healthy as well as have the energy to lead an active lifestyle. They will also tell you that portion control diets are the key to reclaiming your health and to do this you must eat a variety of foods from the different food groups. Your daily diet should include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, milk and dairy products, meats, poultry and eggs.

Fitness depends on healthy eating and healthy menu planner to get the right nutritional value from food you must follow a diet that is rich in fiber. Select foods that have high fiber content like fruits, sugar free salad recipes and whole grains. Your diet should also be low in fats and cholesterol, so go easy on the cheese, butter and margarine. Instead, choose low-fat dairy products and use unsaturated fats like olive and canola oil in your cooking. Meats are a great source of protein but ensure that you eat lean meats so that you don’t consume unwanted fats.

Healthy eating is what fitness is all about and your daily trips to the fast food joint would obviously have to happen no more than once a month. Food from restaurants and takeaways is high in sodium, saturated fats and low in fiber – not a healthy diet if you wish to keep fit. Healthy eating and healthy eating guide also means limiting your sodium and sugar intake as well as taking alcoholic drinks in moderation. Above all, drink plenty of water (at least 8 glasses a day) to keep your body hydrated. Water also helps to move the nutrients throughout your body and flush out the toxins.

The first step to healthy eating plan involves a change in food as well as eating behavior. Don’t skip meals – eat three large meals and a couple of mini meals each day. Most of us tend to skip breakfast which is the most important meal of the day. A good healthy eating menu increases the metabolism and gives you the energy to start off your day. Also, eating a series of meals through the day ensures that your stomach is not empty, thus preventing you from overeating at meal time.

Serving sizes of food to be assimilated well it is necessary to take time to enjoy your food, so eat and chew slowly. Eating food in the right quantity with the help of portion control plates is an essential part of healthy eating and in turn, fitness. Watch those portions or better still, use portion control plates and scoopers to make it easier to get the right amount of essential nutrients the body needs.

Healthy eating should be balanced with exercise to achieve fitness of the body as well as the mind. Making a conscious effort to eat healthy eating breakfast and being disciplined enough to exercise at least twice or thrice a week will help with your fitness program as well as your weight management program.

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Physical fitness was part of the human evolutionary process

For most Americans healthy eating is not about eating adequately. If anything, it is just the opposite – we eat too much! Daily healthy eating plans will keep you fit only when you eat the right foods in the right quantity at the right time.

For many people, maintaining a desirable weight and body fat % can only be achieved through an integrated program of nutrition and healthy eating tips or balancing energy intake with energy expenditure. If you’re overweight, shedding pounds often results in reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and other diseases. Even small weight losses can have significant health benefits

So let’s take a look at what serving sizes of food are right for us and what are these ‘right quantities’.

• Ensure you are eating at least 3 servings from each of the five food groups.

• Eating food that is high in fiber i.e. grains, fruits and vegetables are good for you. Apart from giving wholesome nutrients, it ensures you are not constipated.

• Combine your food with low-fat milk and low cholesterol cooking oil. Always prefer to use healthy vegetarian recipes.

• Make dramatic reductions in the quantum of salt and sugar (even sugar substitutes are dangerous because they serve to confuse the body due their ‘emptiness’.)

• If you must, then drink in moderation

• Eating all your healthy meals including healthy eating information is essential and have them on time Everytime.

• Eating tiny meals (fruits or nuts or sandwich) every two hours and reducing the portion sizes of your lunch and dinner is ideal.

• Eat and chew slowly concentrating on your food. Savor its flavor and taste.

• Using portion size plates and portion control scooper is smarter than using normal plates (except of course, when you have guests at the dining table). Use portion control plates for all your family members including your kids because portion control plates are about eating the right quantities of all foods.

• Unless you have taken less than the recommended quantum of healthy diet plan, don’t go for seconds.

• Bake, broil or grill food instead of frying.

• Obtain the bulk of your protein from vegetables rather than meats. And when it comes to meats, select fresh lean meat cuts from your local butcher.

Fitness:

Physical fitness was part of the human evolutionary process. For tens of thousands of years, traveling meant either walking or running from place to place. Humans hunted game for their food. Hunting in turn required tremendous stamina and energy. The level of physical fitness and portion control tools meant that our ancestors stayed healthy and strong. Today, we don’t even manually sharpen a pencil or move to switch on the lights. Everything is either automatically operated or remotely controlled. And what has been the result of all this automation and finger-tip technology? Our physical body has so degraded due to lack of exercise and fitness that it has resulted in serious health problems. In short, the advancement in science and technology was and is being used for the wrong purposes. This is not to say that we should begin hunting or ditch the car and start running again (though quite frankly, the latter would not be a bad idea). Instead, we need to ensure we have a certain minimum level of physical activity such as:

• Strollers and prams are okay but also let your infant roam around the house – let it use its arms and legs as much as possible

• Make sure your kids get to play outside for no less than one hour each day. Try and join them in their games.

• Plan weekly family outings such as rough terrain biking, swimming in the sea, badminton, baseball, tennis, and so on. Even hula hoops are good.

• If you have a jogging track nearby take your family for a jog thrice a week.

• Make physical activity a part of the family fun activities.

So let’s take a look at what foods are right for us and what are these ‘right quantities’.

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