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Healthy Eating Tip 2: Moderation is key
 People often think of healthy eating as an all or nothing proposition, but a key foundation for any healthy diet is moderation. But what is moderation? How much is a moderate amount? That really depends on you and your overall eating habits. The goal of healthy eating is to develop a diet that you can maintain for life, not just a few weeks or months, or until you've hit your ideal weight. So try to think of moderation in terms of balance. Despite what certain fad diets would have you believe, we all need a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals to sustain a healthy body.
For most of us, moderation or balance means eating less than we do now. More specifically, it means eating far less of the unhealthy stuff (unrefined sugar, saturated fat, for example) and more of the healthy (such as fresh fruit and vegetables). But it doesn't mean eliminating the foods you love. Eating bacon for breakfast once a week, for example, could be considered moderation if you follow it with a healthy lunch and dinner–but not if you follow it with a box of donuts and a sausage pizza. If you eat 100 calories of chocolate one afternoon, balance it out by deducting 100 calories from your evening meal. If you're still hungry, fill up with an extra serving of fresh vegetables.
- Try not to think of certain foods as “off-limits.” When you ban certain foods or food groups it is natural to want those foods more, and then feel like a failure if you give in to temptation. If you are drawn towards sweet, salty, or unhealthy foods, start by reducing portion sizes and not eating them as often. Later you may find yourself craving them less or thinking of them as only occasional indulgences.
- Think smaller portions. Serving sizes have ballooned recently, particularly in restaurants. When dining out, choose a starter instead of an entree, split a dish with a friend, and don't order supersized anything. At home, use smaller plates, think about serving sizes in realistic terms, and start small. If you don't feel satisfied at the end of a meal, try adding more leafy green vegetables or rounding off the meal with fresh fruit. Visual cues can help with portion sizes–your serving of meat, fish, or chicken should be the size of a deck of cards, a slice of bread should be the size of a CD case, and half a cup of mashed potato, rice, or pasta is about the size of a traditional light bulb.
Come back soon for the next Healthy Eating Tip...."It's not just what you eat, it's how you eat!"
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What is Healthy Eating?
Healthy eating is not about strict nutrition philosophies, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, stabilising your mood, and keeping yourself as healthy as possible – all of which can be achieved by learning some nutrition basics and using them in a way that works for you. You can expand your range of healthy food choices and learn how to plan ahead to create and maintain a tasty, healthy diet.
This series of blogs will take you step-by-step through the process of understanding and achieving a healthy balanced diet, including:-
- Set yourself up for success
- Moderation is key
- Fill up on fruits & vegetables
- Eat more whole grains
- Enjoy healthy fats
- Put protein in perspective
- Add calcium & vitamin D
- Limit sugar & salt
Healthy Eating Tip 1: Set yourself up for success
To set yourself up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable steps rather than one big drastic change. If you approach the changes gradually and with commitment, you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think.
Simplify. Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories or measuring portion sizes, think of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. This way it should be easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and easy recipes that incorporate a few fresh ingredients. Gradually, your diet will become healthier and more delicious.
Start slow and make changes to your eating habits over time. Trying to make your diet healthy overnight isn’t realistic or smart. Changing everything at once usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, like adding a salad (full of different color vegetables) to your diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking. As your small changes become habit, you can continue to add more healthy choices to your diet.
Every change you make to improve your diet matters. You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to completely eliminate foods you enjoy to have a healthy diet. The long term goal is to feel good, have more energy, and reduce the risk of cancer and disease. Don’t let your missteps derail you—every healthy food choice you make counts.
Think of water and exercise as food groups in your diet.
Water. Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated - causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.
Exercise. Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day, just like you would add healthy greens, blueberries, or salmon. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.
Keep posted for Healthy Eating Tip 2...."Moderation is key!"
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Healthy Eating to Lose Weight!
Crash diets or fad diets; never help you to lose weight in a healthy way. Even this kind of weight loss is not a permanent one that means when you go back to your regular eating plan, you’ll put on even more than you lost. So it’s very important to lose weight in a healthy manner including daily routine exercise. The body likes slow changes in terms of food and exercise. If you’ve tried and failed to lose weight before, you may believe that it’s just too difficult or that diets don’t work for you. But there are plenty of small but powerful changes you can make that will help you to achieve lasting weight loss success. The key is to create a plan that provides plenty of enjoyable choices, avoid common dieting pitfalls, and learn how to develop a healthier, more satisfying relationship with food.
THE HEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS CALCULATION:
First you should understand this simple formula: If you eat more calories than you burn, then you gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you lose weight.
Since 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound of fat, if you cut 500 calories from your typical diet each day, you'll lose approximately 1 pound a week...
500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories
All too often, we make weight loss much more difficult than it needs to be with extreme diets that leave us cranky and starving, unhealthy lifestyle choices that undermine our dieting efforts, and emotional eating habits that stop us before we get started. But there’s a better way! You can lose weight without feeling miserable. By making smart choices every day, you can develop new eating habits and preferences that will leave you feeling satisfied.
Following are some points that’ll help you to understand the proper way to lose weight healthy...
- Our body uses food for energy and any excess energy is stored as fat in our body, causing weight gain. So it’s simple you need to get your body to use these fat stores to lose weight, and for this you have to, reduce the amount of calories you eat and increase the activity levels, this is how you lose weight in terms of controlled diet and exercises.
- Introduce changes gradually in your diet, don’t expect over night change!! You should change your eating habits permanently and this will happen only if you slowly and gradually start eating health, like swapping full-fat milk for semi-skimmed or making time for breakfast each morning than a diet that sets rules for all foods.
- Try to incorporate more veggies, fruits in your diet. Beans are good source of proteins with lots of dietary fiber. Besides adding whole grains into your diet will give you fullness for longer.
- Eat slowly, savoring the smells and textures of your food. Also take time to chew food, prolong chewing will help you not to eat a lot.
- Breakfast is very important meal of the day and you should never skip it, have a proper and healthy breakfast followed with smaller portions of meals for the whole day, this will keep your energy levels maintained.
- You can easily reduce your daily calorie intake by replacing soda, alcohol, or coffee with water. Thirst can also be confused with hunger, so by drinking water, you may avoid consuming extra calories, plus it will help you break down food more easily.
BEING ACTIVE REALLY HELPS!!
- Increasing activity level really works, No matter if you hate gyms – even light exercise, such as a short 20 minute walk, will be beneficial if done most days of the week, as every single time you exercise more than usual, you burn calories and fat. Team sports, racket sports, aerobics classes, running, walking, swimming and cycling will all improve your fitness levels.
- Get out and about at the weekend. Leave your car on the drive and walk to the shops. Try to incorporate longer walks into outings to the park, coast or countryside and take a picnic, so you're in control of what you are going to eat that day.
- Every extra step you take helps. Always use the stairs instead of the lift, or get off the bus a stop before the usual one and walk the rest of the way.
- Use commercial breaks between TV-programs to stand up and do exercise, or consider using an exercise bicycle in the living room while watching your favorite program.
KEEPING A FOOD DIARY:
If you're not sure what's wrong with your diet, try keeping a daily diary of everything you eat and drink. You can use a notebook for this.
- At the end of the week, review your entries for problem areas.
- Look out for processed foods, alcohol, fast food, roasts, creamy sauces and fried foods.
- If your diet seems largely healthy, look at portion sizes.
A food diary is an excellent first step in assessing how you eat. It can also help you understand how you eat the way you do, which is often just as important when it comes to long-term weight management.
The most important factor in keeping an effective food diary is to make it an honest one. Why go to the trouble of keeping a food diary if you aren't going to be honest with yourself? Remember, no one has to see it but you, so do yourself a favor and stay truthful.
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 Beyond its fabulous flavour and perfect portability, apples are packed with major health benefits.
1. They're Slow Food
Firm and packed with fibre (5 grams, or 20% of your daily value), they demand a chewing commitment, giving your body time to register itself "full" before you scarf down too many calories. And the natural sweeteners in apples enter the bloodstream gradually, helping keep your blood sugar and insulin levels steady so you feel full longer - the opposite of many sugary snacks, which produce a quick rush followed by a hunger-inducing crash.
2. They Help You Breathe Easy
Kids of women who ate the most apples while pregnant were less likely to wheeze or develop asthma by age 5, researchers from the UK found recently. The fruit may also protect the lungs of adults, lowering the risk of asthma, lung cancer, and other diseases.
3. They Zap Cholesterol
Thanks to two key components, pectin (a type of fibre) and polyphenols (powerful antioxidants), apples can take a bite out of blood cholesterol levels and prevent the oxidation of LDL ("bad") cholesterol - the chemical process that turns it into artery-clogging plaque. The trick to maximizing the benefit: Don't toss the peel; apple skin has two to six times the antioxidant compounds as the flesh.
4. They Fight Cancer
Lab studies have shown that several compounds in this juicy fruit curb the growth of cancer cells - but they're most potent when the apple is eaten whole (minus the stem and seeds, of course). People who munch more than one a day lower their risk for several cancers (oral, esophageal, colon, breast, ovarian, prostate, and others) by 9 to 42%, Italian researchers found.
5. They Make You Smarter
Possibly because they boost the production of acetylcholine, a chemical that transmits messages between nerve cells, apples are now thought to keep your brain sharp as you age, enhance memory, and potentially lessen the odds of getting Alzheimer's disease, suggests one recent animal study from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. With this sort of nutritious nosh at your disposal, it might be time to rethink the idea of a "smart cookie."
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