There is an awful lot of information out there on how to eat healthy. You need not feel overwhelmed by this plethora of nutrition information, though. Improving your diet does not require a rigid, all-encompassing plan. You can make positive changes in the way you eat just by making use of a few quick, handy tips:
Sometimes it is better to add things to your diet rather than remove them. If you absolutely do not have the willpower to replace all those unhealthy snack foods you eat with fruits and vegetables, eat the fruits and vegetables anyway. Slowly begin to phase the snack foods out when you feel you can.
Make sure you read all labels and understand you know what it is you are eating before you eat it. You don’t want to go in with any assumptions about foods you are unsure of before you eat them. Do some reading and research to know what is and isn’t healthy for your body.
Eat raw foods. As you get older, your body has a harder time digesting foods, making it less likely that you will be able to extract all the vitamins and nutrients from processed and cooked foods. Raw foods have more nutrients, therefore it’s easier for your digestive system to access them.
When you are trying to stay healthy, you should look at the possibility of taking vitamin B12. This vitamin can help your nerve cells, as well as, blood cells. Vitamin B12 is primarily found in meat and fish or you can go to your local pharmacy and pick up the vitamin in pill form.
If you have bought one of the new special peanut butters with extra omega-3s added in order to improve your nutrition, be aware that you’ve mostly bought a marketing ploy. Though many foods are fortified in a way that makes a real difference nutritionally, the amount of omega-3s added to this special (and expensive) peanut butter is so small that you would have to eat 8 sandwiches’ worth (16 tablespoons) to get as much omega-3 as in a four-ounce serving of salmon.
Avoid using hydrogenated oils for cooking, and watch out for them in packaged foods. These oils provide no nourishment for your skin or your body. In fact, they actually interfere with “good” oils (olive oil, sunflower oil, flax seed oil, fish oil) ability to nourish your skin, hair, nails and entire body!
There are many recipes that you can try to help lose weight. A great one is to shred zucchini, and top it with some raw tomato sauce. It will look a bit like spaghetti, but will be a healthy alternative. You can even use some veggie meatballs to go along with it.
A good nutrition tip is to invest in a shaker bottle. Shaker bottles are a great way to transport protein shakes and they are invaluable for anyone that works out. They’re usually available at a cheap price and if taken care of, they can last a long time.
If you are changing your diet to a more healthy one, get rid of the foods that are unhealthy in your kitchen. You may say that you will avoid eating them, but if they are there, you are just tempting yourself. Try donating the food to a local organization that can help someone else.
One of the main reasons for resorting to junk food is feeling tired, which can cause you to have cravings. To combat this, take a multivitamin at the start of every day. A multivitamin will provide you with all of the minerals and nutrients that you need to feel alert and stay active during the day.
Salads need color and texture to catch the picky eater’s eye. Don’t be content with just lettuce. Add spinach or any young green to keep things interesting. Top it all off with some grape tomatoes or tomato wedges, baby carrots, green pepper, mushrooms, mandarin oranges and a few nuts.
An easy way to reduce excess sugar in your diet is to cut out foods containing corn syrup, which is simply another form of sugar. There are many unexpected foods that contain corn syrup, such as condiments, so make sure to read all of the labels on your foods carefully.
More and more people are discovering that they are gluten intolerant or completely allergic to it with celiacs disease. Gluten is the protein found in wheat, barley, rye and other grains. If you have a sensitive stomach, or digestive issues, check with your doctor to see if you might need to be tested.
In some ways, the whole field of nutrition is simply more complicated than it has to be. More information is good, of course – except when it discourages you from taking action. You can avoid the whole mess by concentrating on simple changes that are easy to employ and deliver great results.