Starting a healthy eating plan can be difficult. But the benefits far outweigh the effort. Eating a diet of healthy foods keeps your body functioning properly, both by helping you to maintain a healthy weight and giving your body what it needs to fight off diseases.
A good place to start is at the grocery store.
Don’t shop when you’re hungry, you’ll be tempted to buy junk food that you know you shouldn’t have. If at all possible stay out of the snack food aisle altogether.
If you like to snack during the day stock up on your favorite fruits and vegetables. The are nutritious, low calorie, and filling. You can also keep a box of Wheat Thins on hand, they are baked instead of fried and made of whole wheat.
If you just can’t get through the day without something sweet you can try some flavored yogurt, there are many varieties that can satisfy your sweet tooth. Or you could have a small bag of chocolate chips on hand, a few chips can give you your chocolate fix and not ruin your eating plan.
Be careful when choosing low-fat foods, in order to lower the fat content sugar is added for flavor. Low-fat foods often have the same amount of calories as the regular product does, sometimes they can even have more calories!
Plan your meals ahead if you can, whole grains are much healthier for you but take longer to prepare. A few extra minutes in the kitchen can help add a few extra years to your life.
Try to reduce your soft drink consumption, they are liquid sugar. With the controversy surrounding artificial sweeteners diet sodas aren’t much better, they have no calories but may cause cancer.
Take the junk food you already have on hand and put it out of reach so that it takes some time and effort to get at it. You will have time to consider if you really want to put that junk in your body, remember garbage in garbage out.
Limit your intake of red and processed meats as more studies are showing that large amounts of red meat can be harmful and possibly cause cancer.
Learn a little about how your body works, knowledge is power. When you know what junk food does to you over time it is easier to cut it out of your diet.
Now, I don’t always practice what I preach. I do enjoy the occasional cheeseburger but I know that I also have to eat a lot more fiber and anti-oxidants to offset the free radicals in beef. That’s the price I pay for indulging in beef once or twice a month.
When I do stray off-track I can feel it. My energy level is down and it’s harder to concentrate.
Try it yourself for one week. Cut out the fatty, greasy junk food and eat a healthy, balanced diet, with lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. You won’t really notice the change at first. It’s a slow process. Then do an experiment.
After one week go to your favorite junk food joint and get a super value meal. A half hour or so after eating it you will start to feel slow and sluggish. You don’t notice the effect when you always eat junk food but with the contrast you can easily tell.
Start small, one step at a time. In a few days you will start to notice that you look and feel better than you have in years.