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Why do attempts to have a balanced regime fail?
Many attempts to adopt a balanced and healthy diet fail because the changes in the diet are drastic. It’s not impossible, but it’s extremely difficult to go from skipping breakfast to eating a full breakfast every day, from pizza and burgers with fries to broccoli gratin with meat overnight. grilled turkey, and other radical changes. Try to keep a food diary for a week, with the frequency and consistency of meals, eating habits, snacks. Afterwards, try to implement small beneficial changes, gradually, so that the body gets used to the new reality and assimilates it, and the brain acquires some routines.
Don’t be too ambitious, start with small steps, if for example you don’t eat vegetables at all, instead of proposing to consume a certain amount of vegetables every day, propose a vegetarian menu one day a week. After 3-4 weeks, I introduce portions of vegetables 2 days a week, then 3 days and so on. If you consume carbonated juices 4 days/week, in the same way, reduce either the amount consumed or the number of days you consume. Consider that we form our eating habits over years, therefore they require “modeling” for a long time to be internalized and maintained à la longue. Hard-to-achieve, drastic goals are stressful and too hard to sustain, which is why they often lead to failure.
Planning a weekly menu
Plan meals in advance for a avoid impulsive food decisions. Such an organization allows us to include a variety of foods in our diet, but also to save time and money with daily trips to the store or orders for ready-made food. At the same time, fewer visits to the supermarket also means a reduction in the episodes in which we are tempted to buy a bag of chips for the series, when the reason we entered the store was to buy a Mexican mix for dinner.
If you don’t have the possibility to cook for several days, make sure you have supplies that you can call on, but not from the ultra-processed category and with a high content of fat, sugar and salt, but products with which you can quickly fill a meal or that you can use as snacks:
- Canned tomatoes
- Canned beans
- Keep your tone
- leave
- Whole grains (brown rice, quinoa)
- Oat
- Peanut butter (no added sugar)
- Potatoes
- Popcorn (without butter, without salt or with very little salt)
- Frozen berries
- Oua.
Learn more about what a healthy diet means?
Why does the glycemic index of foods matter?
The glycemic index of a food refers to the speed with which the blood sugar level (glycemia) increases after consuming the respective food.
Some foods have a high glycemic index (candy, ice cream, cakes, biscuits, potatoes, very well-ripened fruits), while others have a low glycemic index (spinach, cabbage, lentils, almonds, pecans, pumpkin seeds).
Choose those with a low glycemic index because they have a slower absorption that causes a gradual increase in blood sugar levels. Thus, they help manage the appetite, being able to provide energy to the body for longer periods, maintain the feeling of satiety and prevent uncontrolled food cravings.
- Foods with low glycemic load: apples, oranges, kidneys, beans, black beans, lentils, cashews, hazelnuts, carrots.
- Average glycemic load: pearl barley, brown rice, oatmeal, bulgur, rice cakes, wholemeal bread, wholemeal cereals, pasta.
- High glycemic load: white potatoes, refined cereals, sugar-sweetened drinks, candies, white rice, pasta with white flour.
How does our diet sabotage the snacks between meals?
Many times, even if the main meals are as close as possible to the ideal (breakfast rich in nutrients, lunch – the ideal plate contains ½ vegetables, salads, ¼ carbohydrates, ¼ proteins and a light dinner), the snacks during the day in front of the laptop or the snacks consumed in the evening while watching series can damage the healthy eating habits that we are trying to adopt/maintain.
Since we hardly find time to prepare balanced meals, allocating additional resources to preparing snacks seems an impossible mission. So how can we have healthy snacks? Here are some ideas below:
- Fresh fruit is the most convenient solution, but if you opt for fruit, eat the fruit as such, whole. Otherwise, choose minimally processed products that are healthy sources of fats, carbohydrates or proteins.
- ½ cup plain, low-fat Greek yogurt, sprinkled with fresh or frozen berries
- ¼ cup of cereal mix with nuts or seeds, dried fruit and dark chocolate
- ¼ cup of hummus with 1 cup of fresh vegetables (carrots, cherry tomatoes)
- Peanut butter, almonds on slices of apples, pears, bananas or whole grain crackers
- Three to four cubes of low-fat cheese.
Breakfast and heart health
Several studies have associated the habit of eating breakfast every day with better health. Nutrition experts support the idea that a nutrient-rich breakfast helps us maintain our cardiovascular health.
Consume more whole grains and avoid refined grains with added sugar, healthy proteins with unsaturated fats or with a low content of saturated fats, for example:
- Boiled eggs
- Greek yogurt/natural yogurt
- Milk/dairy with a low fat content, without sugar and other additives
- Wholemeal bread with avocado, peanut butter (sugar-free)
- Oat flakes/rye
- Quinoa
- Amaranth
- Buckwheat.
6 information to look for on food product labels
In the presence of a huge variety of products, it can be confusing to make the healthiest choice. What is the most important information that we should pay attention to when checking the label?
- The number of calorieshow many calories does a product have and how many calories does another similar product have?
- Saturated fats – always check the amount of saturated fat in the product and choose the one with a lower amount of saturated fat. Do not strictly check the total value of fats because that figure also includes the healthy fats (unsaturated) found mainly in olive oil, fresh avocado or peanut butter, therefore we must differentiate these 2 types of fats.
- Net – most people should consume less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day (the equivalent of approx. one teaspoon of salt). Sodium is a natural flavor enhancer often used in large quantities because it can accentuate other flavors in food, which for the manufacturer means more sales and more revenue. For buyers, however, it damages their health. Compare the amount of salt that the products contain, opt for products with a low salt content.
- FIBER – pay attention to the fiber content, the higher it is, the better. Products such as whole grains and whole grain bread are rich in fiber. Fibers maintain the health of the digestive tract, help control blood sugar levels and control weight.
- The sugar – check how much added sugar the product has. The best options are those with zero added sugar, but if you don’t have the opportunity to make such a choice, opt for the product lower in sugars.
- Ingredient list – the fewer ingredients, the better. Pay attention to the names specified on the label and orient yourself by the known ones (if you have them at home and use them in home-cooked dishes, it’s perfect). For example, a snack that contains tartrazine (E102, a synthetic food coloring). “Do I have tartrazine at home in the pantry? Do I use it when I cook?”if the answer is NO, then it is good to reorient ourselves to another product with fewer ingredients and additives written on the packaging or perhaps to choose a fruit or a bag of almonds.
Learn more about how to read labels The first step towards healthy food choices
Although checking the labels may seem like a process that requires far too much time, in reality, if we opt for the least processed products or “with only one ingredient on the label” (nuts and seeds, whole grains, simple dairy, meat, fish, oils), legumes, fresh fruits and vegetables, then the time allocated to checking the labels decreases considerably. Also, after a period of comparing and checking, we already know how to make the better choice.
Self-education and sustained efforts to maintain healthy eating habits not only provide a state of well-being, physically and mentally, but can significantly contribute to the prevention of serious diseases, from obesity and diabetes to cardiovascular pathologies.
References:
- Smart eating – chapter 5, Harvard Health Annual 2023 | Harward Medical School
2024-01-22 23:14:48
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