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Tips For A Balanced Healthy Diet That Tastes Great!

Posted on March 9, 2009
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A balanced healthy diet may sound like it doesn't taste good but it can and should be something that you add to your daily life. With the right nutrition, your body can do all of the things that it needs to including performing at optimal levels, increasing your tolerance against illness and even helping you to live longer. The good news is that a balanced healthy diet can also taste good to you. It is just a matter of changing the way that you think and see food and making it something that's better for your overall health.

5 Things To Do Now

Since you know the importance of a balanced healthy diet, here are five things that you can do now that will improve your overall health that does not taste bad.

1. Consume less. In many cases, the best route to improving your health is to simply eat less. One study showed that most portion sizes in restaurants today are not geared towards actually providing one serving, but at least two. Plan to bring home half of your food or just consume less. Use eight inch plates instead of twelve inch.
2. Eat more vegetables per serving. You can flavor them any way that you want, but the goal is to consume more. Not only do they provide you with vitamins and minerals that you need, they also provide you with a range of antioxidants that can actually improve your health overall.
3. Drink more water. Becoming thirsty is the first sign of dehydration. In your balanced healthy diet, you need to have enough fluids to keep your body working 100 percent. Drink more water and less sugar based drinks and you can instantly improve your health.
4. A balanced healthy diet often includes the use of supplements. Today it is very difficult to get all of the nutrition that you need. It is very important, then, to supplement your diet with something that's more than just what's in your food.
5. Make bad foods treats instead of constants. It is nice to have a great diet that's full of nutrients in a balanced healthy diet, but everyone wants to eat those foods that are not healthy for you. Instead of eating them everyday, eat them once a week.

For those that are considering if they have a healthy balanced diet, the first person to talk to is your doctor or a dietician. What you consume defines your health and your ability to fight off disease, to live longer and of course the way that you look and the energy that you have.

The Heart-Healthy Diet: Playing the Numbers

Posted on March 7, 2009
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Discounting the genetic factor, heart disease is the result of an unhealthy lifestyle—a poor diet, inactivity, and smoking—combined characteristics that some experts describe as unprecedented in human evolution. Diet is only one piece of the puzzle, but it is a big piece and we can control it.

Diet and heart disease: too much bad stuff, not enough good stuff

Research tells us that all of the following contribute to heart disease or are risk factors for heart disease:
• Eating way more calories than we need, leading to obesity
• Eating large amounts of saturated and transfats and cholesterol
• Eating sodium-loaded foods that raise blood pressure
• Eating too little of the foods with nutrients that protect the heart

Starting a heart-healthy diet: play the numbers

If you want to start a heart-healthy diet, begin by setting goals that are easy for you and your doctor to observe and measure. It’s a numbers game that anyone can play. Let it motivate you. Here are the numbers you want to record and watch from the day you start your diet until you reach your first goal.

• You want these numbers to go down: weight, total cholesterol, LDL (bad cholesterol), triglycerides, blood pressure.
• You want this number to go up: HDL (good cholesterol)

Any medical website, or your doctor, can give you the latest scales for rating your numbers—from high risk to low risk.

The heart of the matter: take it or or leave it

Adopting and adapting to a heart-healthy diet means knowing what to take into your body and what to leave alone. Whether you are eating at home or eating out, use some of the most current and important guidelines.

• For a heart-healthy diet, take these: fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grain breads, cereals, pasta, rice, fish and lean meats. Together, these foods provide a diet that is low in fat and high in soluble fiber. This can translate into lower LDL and lower insulin levels, which cut the risk not only for heart disease but also for diabetes.

• For a heart-healthy diet, leave these alone: red meat, cheese. ice cream, butter, sweets and other items (breads, cereals) that are high in sugar and fats and low in fiber and nutrients. If you cannot leave them alone, cut back on them gradually until you eat them only occasionally or not at all.

Shopping for a heart-healthy diet: play the numbers again

You cannot win the first numbers game for a heart-healthy diet—lowering weight and cholesterol, raising HDL—without playing a second numbers game when you shop. Watch out for any kind of packaged, canned, or bottled items. The more you read the numbers on the labels, the more you will see the vast range in amounts of good stuff (fiber, vitamins, minerals) and bad stuff (sugar, fat/transfat, sodium). Remember that many desserts are not just bad for your waistline. They make war on your heart with loads of trans fats and provide nothing but empty calories at prices most Americans cannot afford. You don’t buy empty boxes in a department store. Why buy empty food?

Ready to get started on a heart-healthy diet?

Calculate your body mass index (the National Institutes of Health website provides a calculator), visit your doctor, record the numbers from your blood work, and you are ready to play. Hedge your bets and play for keeps.

Why is Weight Loss Important?

Posted on February 22, 2009
Filed Under Weight Loss | 1 Comment

If you are happy with your weight, you belong to the minority of people in the world, but should be applauded for your positive outlook on your life and your body. However, weight loss still may be needed. Many people who are overweight say that they are happy with their bodies, but the fact remains that weight loss in order to achieve a healthy weight is very important. There are a number of reasons you should consider weight loss, even if you don’t mind having a few extra pounds.

First a foremost, if you are overweight, you are at risk for a number of diseases. The main health risk you will probably experience is heart disease, which can lead to a heart attack. Many heart attacks are deadly. Heart disease develops when you heart has to work extra hard to pump the blood to the body, which causes it to become fatigued. This can occur simply because you are overweight, or can be a result of high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

Along with heart disease, having high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels can also put you at risk for a stroke. Strokes occur when blood, and therefore oxygen, cannot reach the brain. This can happen due to high cholesterol. When you have high cholesterol, the fatty deposits build up on your artery walls. If a piece of this plaque breaks off and travels to the heart, it causes a heart attack, and traveling to the brain causes a stroke.

Being overweight is also bad for women who wish to become pregnant. When you’re overweight, the hormones in your body are changing, and if you don’t get the right nutrients you may find that your body does not produce the right chemicals for the hormones needed to ovulate or carry a child. Even if you become pregnant, being overweight puts you at risk for a miscarriage or health problems with the baby.

Beyond the health world, being overweight can also affect your daily life. You may find it difficult to purchase clothing in your size or you may find that the clothing that does come in larger sizes is more expensive. This is simply due to the manufacturer need more material to make the same article of clothing. Problems extend beyond shopping when doing things like visiting theme parks, where you may not be able to ride all of the rides, or using public transportation, where you may feel crowded in seats made for smaller people. Losing weight, even if you are currently happy with your own weight, is always a healthy and smart option, until you reach a normal weight.

The Healthy Diet Plan: Savvy Strategies for Healthier Habits

Posted on February 16, 2009
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Are you serious about switching to a healthy diet? Would you like to find a healthy diet plan that motivates you to replace bad habits and unhealthy food with a new world of taste and pleasure? Would you also like a healthy diet plan that is compatible with a fast, busy lifestyle? With a little creativity you can have both.

Of course, anything that requires replacing old habits with new ones is challenging—because it leads to a new life. Are you ready for that? If you are, the healthy diet plan strategies that follow will shake things up and get you programmed to buy, prepare, and eat healthier food.

Make room for change

Get into your pantry, refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets. Throw out, clear out, and clean up as much as possible. The goal: make plenty of space for healthy food and tools and supplies that are essential to implement your healthy diet plan.

Get supplies and tools

Before you bring home groceries, make sure you have measuring cups, spoons, and plenty of small and large storage containers. A healthy-diet plan requires lots of de-packaging and preparing items for ready use or transit. It also requires some formal (cups and spoons) or informal (palmful and dashes) measuring. It cannot be said enough: serving size and portion control matter—enormously.

Develop the mindset

Make some quick-reference cards with tasty sauces, dips, and dressings. A healthy diet plan relies on healthy ideas that you don’t have to dig for. The goal for sauces, dips, and dressings should be a few ingredients low in calories and high in taste—or high in calorie and high in taste, if used sparingly. For example:

• Dress an avocado salad with mustard and Balsamic vinegar
• Dress a lettuce and fruit salad with orange juice concentrate whisked with pear juice and a touch of sour cream.
• Make a tasty gravy for meat or rice with vegetable or chicken stock whisked with a touch of sour cream or milk in a pan of hot oil and drippings.

Think mix and match. Whether you are eating in or grabbing food to go, your healthy diet plan must be based on a healthy-diet pyramid and easy to put together. Even better, see if you can become creative enough to make everything you buy multipurpose in your menus.

• Train yourself to look at every item you buy and think of four different ways you can use it. Flip through recipe books or web sites for ideas and ask for tips from friends. Think about this for a healthy mix-and-match lunch: a small amount of whole-grain angel hair pasta with chopped red, green, or any color peppers, chunks of chicken or tuna, tossed in a light mix of olive oil and seasonings. Now think about replacing the pasta with rice or the peppers with celery, squash, cucumber, tomato, or some other veggie. Keep the creative juices flowing.

• Never underestimate the taste value of a small amount of healthy oil and tasty nuts, seeds, cheeses, and fresh or additive-free seasonings. A little goes a long way and can mean the difference between loving your healthy diet plan or becoming bored with it.

Look ahead and stay ahead

Your healthy diet plan will work with a busy life only if you de-package and prepare food to move easily from storage to final preparation to serving.

• As soon as you bring in the groceries, start removing the packaging, chopping veggies, and dumping bulk items into square storage containers. Chopped veggies keep well in ice water and will be ready to use. Square containers stack compactly in the refrigerator, freezer, or pantry and make scooping fast and easy.

• Separate and store in the freezer anything that you want to use later. The trick is to freeze items in convenient quantities. For example, if you live alone, package and freeze single servings. Learn which foods freeze well and for how long. You may be surprised how many meals you can make ahead and freeze to enjoy later.

The possibilities are endless

Your healthy-diet plan will be unique. The strategies here merely scratch the surface. The possibilities for a no-fuss healthy diet plan that you can love are endless.

Home Body

Posted on February 16, 2009
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Too shy to work out at a commercial gym or is it too expensive?  Create your own gym at home and avoid the expense. This will allow you to work out and lose weight at home.

Working at home does have its benefits. You can save travel time, choose your own gear and select the television show or music to which you want to work out. It is also, according to some experts, just as easy to lose weight in a home gym. You need to apply yourself and stick to a routine.

Do not go overboard in buying equipment. Buy only that which meets your needs and your budget. A starter kit could consist of the following

• Dumbbells – for resistance and weight training
• Jump rope – best form of indoor cardio-vascular exercises burning calories and building strength, power and bone density
• Stability ball – strengthens abs and back

Simple, inexpensive and effective.

Plugging Into A Circuit

Posted on February 16, 2009
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Circuit training is the arrangement of initial exercise routines in a circle. Alternating the different muscle groups resulted in the name “circuit training.”  The method, by allowing only an interval of mere seconds between stations, helps you gain cardiovascular fitness along with the benefits of resistance training.

Cardiovascular training combined with weight lifting is an excellent to address two issues of weight loss: reducing excess weight and building muscles. The benefits of circuit training include variety and creativity. In the gym, you can move from weights to cardiovascular and back from stairs to dumbbells to physioballs, balance equipment and weights. This increases cardiovascular health, enhances motor skills, improves endurance and prevents boredom from setting in too quickly Outdoors, you can combine walking, biking and hiking.

Developing training circuits introduces variety and creativity into an exercise routine. The type of equipment and exercises are numerous. The changing pace and the alternating of the various equipment maintains interest at a peak level.

The Joys Of Swimming

Posted on February 16, 2009
Filed Under Weight Loss | 2 Comments

Swimming is a healthy form of weight loss. It is excellent for people with extra weight who need the light buoyancy of water to provide them with incentive and support. Swimming also offers variety. You can alternate various types, switching from freestyle to backstroke to breaststroke. This relieves possible monotony and allows you to exercise various different muscles. With swimming, you exercise your leg muscles, calf muscles, arms and lungs. This aerobic exercise is a very good way to tone much of your body.

There are two ways to approach “swimmercise.” You can take a program geared specifically to helping people lose weight or you can go it alone. Actually, it is a good thing to combine the two methods. This will allow you to have the support and guidance of a group as well as the experience of a solo workout.

Rolling Away The Pounds: Inline Skates, Roller Skatting And Weight Loss

Posted on February 16, 2009
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If you are not into indoor exercise or if the thought of sitting on a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill does not appeal to you, why not try roller blading? Roller blading or inline skating is an active and easy way to remove excess weight and keep it off. Skating is, also, a healthy outdoor and indoor activity you can share with friends and the family.

Roller skating is a cardio-vascular exercise. As such, it increases your heart rate, burning more calories. It strengthens your leg muscles, challenges your sense of balance and lets you have fun at the same time. Furthermore, it is relatively inexpensive. There are boardwalks, sidewalks and other areas you can skate – no gym fees; clothing - whatever is comfortable, and you can rent the skates at first or buy a used pair.Overall, it is an easy way to knock off those extra pounds.

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