Some Healthy Cooking and Eating Habits You Need to Adopt

Apart from sticking to a planned diet, there are certain healthy habits you need to adopt to ensure a successful diet plan.

You should already have a written menu.

Start counting your calories as soon as you pick up food to eat. This will discourage you from eating high calorie foods.

Eat about five moderate but balanced meals spread out through the day in order to keep your metabolism stable.

Eat more sea foods and vegetables than any other high calorie proteins. Do not eat the skin of animals as they contain a lot of unwanted fats.

If you need to snack, snack generally on fresh fruits, vegetables, low fat yoghurt or cereals.

Generally increase your water, fruit and vegetable intake and engage in one form of moderate exercise or the other.

Choose the healthier carbohydrates like potatoes, unripe plantain and unprocessed wheat. Eat light meals, especially at night, if you don’t exercise enough to burn off the excess food.

Your meals should be in this proportion; Carbohydrates , proteins , fats , vitamins and minerals .

Limit intake of salt and saturated oils like palm oil and increase intake of healthy oils like olive oil and oil from fish. Saturated fat is bad for the heart.

Avoid soft drinks, alcohol and junk food. Eat egg white instead of yolk.
Eat more brown foods like beans, wheat and potatoes. They help control cancer.

Carry your snack of fruits and vegetables with you wherever you go, to avoid the temptation of eating wrong.

Avoid fried foods. Boil, steam, grill or roast your foods. Use French dressing instead of mayonnaise in your salads.
When you boil your beef, chicken etc, allow the stork to cool, so you can separate unwanted fat from the liquid.

Use margarine spread instead of butter. Plant fat is healthier and is easily digested.

Cook white sauces instead of our oily African stews.

Eggs and vegetables should boil for only seven minutes or you destroy the natural nutrients in them.

Drink yoghurt or low fat milk instead of full cream milk.
Use honey instead of refined sugar. Cut down on your coffee intake. Do not drink coffee on an empty stomach as this can lead to certain unwanted ailments.

Certain Things You Must Know About Losing Weight

Before going on a diet, you must first psyche yourself up and agree to follow a strict pattern.

The diet plan should be consistent in order to achieve good results.

Do an MIR scan to find out the quantity of fat in your body.

Do a BMI {Body Mass Index] check to ascertain your real body weight.

You need a scale to weigh yourself on a daily or weekly basis and a note book to record your weight progressively. Ensure that you enter all the records of your weight as well as the number of calories consumed daily, into your notebook accordingly.

If you do not record any weight loss in a particular week, know that you are indulging yourself. So, cut down on certain foods accordingly.

Do not skip meals. This can result in hunger pangs which makes you crave for high calorie foods which will mess up your diet plan.
Eat five small, low calorie balanced meals spread throughout the day.

Eat with smaller plates which make you eat less. When plenty of food is available on a big plate, you tend to eat more.

Control hunger pangs by increasing the protein in your diet. Proteins like beans, chicken and fatless beef keep you fuller longer than other foods, ensuring that you eat less. Ten percent more protein in your diet can make you feel fuller than a person with less protein and more carbohydrate.

Variety can affect what you eat and how you eat. There is a tendency for you to want to touch as much food as possible at a buffet, thereby over eating.

Low fat dairy products absorb fat from the body. The calcium in dairy products binds fat molecules in food. This fat is then passed out as faeces instead of ending up on your hips and tummy.

Increase your fresh fruit, vegetable and water intake, as well as physical activity. Exercises are just as vital as restrictions on food, for a successful weight management.
Three litres of water daily, thirty minutes of physical activity five times a week and 5 portions of fruit and vegetable in recommended by WHO.

Want To Live A Healthier Longer Life? Change Your Lifestyle.

You don’t want to be restricted by ill-health or overweight in your journey through life! You want to live a long and useful life! So, change your lifestyle. Change the way you think about food. Start a weight loss diet plan that appeals to you today.

It has been observed in recent times, that more and more people are becoming victims of one ailment or another. More people are aging faster, and obesity, even in children, has become the order of the day. People need to be sensitized and educated on this trend so that they know what to do to redress the situation.

Healthy eating, a shift from our modern lifestyle is the solution to most of our diseases, premature aging and obesity. You will discover that you can attain and maintain good health just by eating right. Proper diet can also help you age without looking wrinkled.

More than 80% of diseases these days are caused by our diet and lifestyle. Because of our busy lifestyles and schedules, more and more people are opting for unhealthy high calorie fast foods instead of traditional healthy low calories home – cooked meals. Today, we indulge in sophisticated preserved canned and refrigerated foods. Dr S.E. Osawe, a nutritionist, encourages us to take the trouble to understand and appreciate the value of nutrition and herbal medicine in the maintenance and restoration of good health, as well as in the building up of the immune system for a long, happy an useful life.

Most diseases can be prevented if only people can be persuaded to go back to basics and eat more natural foods like fruits, vegetables, healthier proteins and carbohydrates. They should not wait to be faced with a life – threatening situation before they change their diet.

Death rate in the US in the early 1900 from heart –related diseases was 15%. Presently, over 400 die daily from bad diets and habits.
Our fore fathers lived long and healthy lives because of their natural diet. Present day Chinese and Taiwanese grow rice but do not grow fat on rice. They eat small portions of rice with plenty of vegetables, while we Africans, especially West Africans, eat large bowls of rice with very little meat or fish, and hardly any vegetables and grow fat on rice. Life expectancy in China is about 120 years while in West Africa, it is less than 70.

Some hereditary diseases like diabetes continue to manifest over time because of wrong diet. Ignorance has a part to play in our choice of food. Someone needs to change the diet in such families for the better in order to redress the trend.
No drug will stop aging and death, but with the right type of diet, most of the attendant problems of aging and disease will be minimized and we can live a healthier and comfortable life until God decides to call us.