Eating Habits To Change For Health

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eating habits to change for health

Habits That Impact Your Health

Eating habits to change for health won’t disrupt your lifestyle but improve your health. They look impossible but are easier when you take steps every day.

In fact, changing a few eating habits to smart but realistic daily behaviors each week can deliver big benefits over the long run. Here are 8 simple eating habits to change for health, and more nutritious fare.

3 Healthy Snacks

Homemade fish sticks

Fish sticks are the seafood version of hot dogs and are popular with kids. Here is a healthier do-it-yourself version: Pick up a mackerel, haddock, or tuna steak and cut it into finger-size portions. Dip the sticks into an egg-white batter and roll them in a bowl of breadcrumbs or flour. Freeze, and then bake when hungry.

Fresh fruit sorbet

It is nutritious and low in calories, and it has zero fat.  Step 1: Buy pineapple, watermelon, and mango fruit.  Step 2: Peel, chop up and freeze overnight. Step 3: Place the frozen bag of fruits in hot water for 1 minute. Step 4: Remove from the bag and pour the fruit into a blender and puree. 5. Eat immediately.

Roast chicken breast

Eating habits to change for health include dumping chicken skin. So, how about some spicy low-fat chicken breast? Instead of using chicken wings, use skinless chicken breast tenders. Cut into strips and marinate them overnight in a mixture of Tabasco, olive oil, garlic powder, and red wine vinegar. Then roast the ‘strips’ at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes.

eating habits to change for health

2 Ways To Shop Smarter

Be wise on bread

Shopping in the bread aisle, you naturally grab a loaf of something brown thinking it must be higher in fiber than white Ploughman, right? Well, no. That dark colour may be courtesy of molasses or food dyes. Likewise, a loaf with seeds or oatmeal flakes on top is not necessarily high in fiber, either. To be sure you are shopping right, look for the phrase ‘100% whole-wheat’ or ‘whole-grain’.

Check your milk

Eating habits to change for health raise a red flag on milk. Low-fat milk isn’t the same as fat-free. If you want fat-free milk, the label should say ‘100% fat-free’.  But if you can’t get that, then buy low-fat. Then fill to half glass and top with cold water for your cereal. Or just make it a delightfully refreshing drink.

2 Foods You Need to Eat More

Steamed Greens

Green leafy vegetables are densely packed with vitamins and minerals. And are also high in fiber.  In fact, a cup of steamed mixed greens delivers almost half the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin A, more than 150 percent of vitamin C, 7 percent of calcium, 13 percent of iron, 8 percent of thiamine, and 5 percent of niacin; a delightful benefit at only 44 calories.

Berries

Blueberries are one of the most healthful foods you can eat. They beat 39 other fruits and vegetables in the antioxidant power ratings, making them a great hedge against cellular damage that contributes to heart disease and cancer. Make it your goal to eat a bowl of blueberries every week. Can’t find berries locally, go for red grapes.

2 Add-Ons You Can Do Without

Oil

Another red flag in eating habits to change for health is oil consumption. You can dramatically reduce the amount of oil needed to pan-fry foods simply by keeping a lid on the pot. By catching and returning moisture that would normally escape, the lid removes the need for more oil.

Cheese

When it comes to cheese, it pays to get handy with a grater. Scrape some Parmesan or other hard cheese on your sandwich or chef’s salad, and you will save fat calories over a standard sliced fare. Worse if you have to slice yourself, as you will naturally cut it chunkier. But using grated cheese means you will use less. Right? 

eating habits to change for health

3 Best Eat-Out Strategies

Avoid the deep-fried spring rolls

Eating habits to change for health are tested when you dine out. For instance, when you are at a Chinese restaurant, it’s common to go through a plate of those delicious crispy spring rolls before your main meal. But just two rolls of these fried rolls typically contain 400 calories, of which 46% are from fat (55 grams). And who has ever stopped at just two rolls? Order Peking soup instead with chunky tofu slices and Chinese bean sprouts.

Go easy on the soft cookies

Eating habits to change for health includes easing off on cookies. With so many arrays of cookies on our supermarket shelves, this is a good tip. A cookie crumbling indicates its fat content. Harder cookies like gingersnaps and vanilla wafers have about half the fat of their soft cousins. To be doubly sure, rest your favorite on a napkin. If you see a grease stain, leave it alone.

Choose a mineral water cocktail

At a party, follow each drink with a glass of mineral water. At least that means you will always have something to sip, apart from alcohol. Hence getting half the liquor and calories you otherwise would. No-calorie, sparkling mineral water, and lime look just like a 170-calorie gin and tonic.

eating habits to change for health

5 Rules of Weight Loss

Eat colourful foods

Buy the brightest vegetables you see. Vibrant colors usually correspond with more vitamins. This means go easy on iceberg lettuce, celery, and cucumbers. And load up on carrots, tomatoes, red peppers, and sweet potatoes. They are higher in vitamins such as A and C. Or go for darker shades of greens. The same holds true for fruit. For instance, pink grapefruit has more than forty times the vitamin A of white grapefruit. Mangoes, pawpaw, and watermelons are also good choices.

No crash diet

For safe, lasting weight loss, experts advise not to lose more than 1kg per week. The biggest drawback of rapid weight loss is that you’re far more likely to regain the weight. People who shed pounds quickly rely on extreme exercise programs or very low-calorie diets, which are tough to maintain for more than a few weeks. Rapid weight loss also involves losing fluid, which can be risky if you’re involved in vigorous exercise. Often, those who quickly lose a lot of weight rebound to a higher weight.

Weigh daily

The biggest health risk for adults is weight gain, so monitor yours daily. When you step on the scale each morning, compare what you are today with yesterday, this week with last week. And this month with last month, this year with last year. When you see an increase, immediately go to portion control and increase physical activity. You usually can’t feel a 1kg-2.5kg pound weight gain without a scale.

Drink more water

Drink two glasses of water before every meal. This will do two things: keep you hydrated and make you eat less.

Eat your fiber

Eating habits to change for health mean getting to like and eating a more high-fiber diet. Fiber is incredibly important when it comes to weight management. Strive for 25 to 35 g of fiber every day.

eating habits to change for health

3 Ways To Be Fat Smart

Reduce the fat on pizza

Always order your pizza with double tomato sauce and less cheese. Men who eat a lot of tomato products tend to have less prostate cancer, probably because tomatoes are a rich source of lycopene. Reducing the mozzarella by just one-third will save you 20 grams of fat per pie.

Soften your spread

Soften butter or margarine at room temperature. The chances are you’ll spread your bread with one-quarter of the fat and calories than when you put it on cold and hard straight from the fridge.

Oil your veggies

To save calories and fat, put a splash of olive oil on your vegetables and potatoes instead of the usual butter or mayonnaise.

4 Foods You Don’t Need

Cinema popcorn

One of the worst foods you can eat is movie theater popcorn dripping with butter. It can pack up to 126 g of fat, much of it saturated and bad for your heart. You would do better if you smuggle in supermarket popcorn.

Salad dressing

Since dressing contains so much oil, a simple green salad can end up having 70 to 80% fat. One tablespoon of oil is 120 calories of pure fat. And because it is already tossed before it is served, you cannot control the amount of dressing that is applied. Order the house salad with dressing on the side instead.

Muffins

Muffins look healthy outwardly with all the berries and other fruits in them, but they are high in calories. The regular ones can contain 500 calories, of which nearly half are fat. So watch out for those muffins offered in the early mornings for breakfast on the plane. Ask for a plate of fresh fruits instead.

Transfat

According to a study, you could reduce your heart attack risk in half by cutting out just 4g of trans fats each day. You will find them in stick margarine, crackers, cookies, cakes, and many deep-fried foods. Look for the phrase ‘partially hydrogenated vegetable oil’ on the label. The closer to the top of the ingredient list you find it listed the more trans fats the food contains.

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https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/how-to-eat-healthy-without-dieting

Photo Credit: Creative Commons.

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