For a healthy lifestyle, eat a well balanced diet and do moderate
exercise regularly. Being consistent, both in your eating habits and
exercise regime, is a major plus on the road to good health. Avoid bad
food and you will reap the benefits of a healthier body and mind.
Good Foods
Vegetables
All vegetables are good for you and green leafy vegetables are not just
healthy items, they are also low in calories. If you are watching your
weight you can safely include plenty of green vegetables into your diet.
Cabbage and it's close relative broccoli are full of essential vitamins
and minerals and broccoli in particular is said to have cancer protection
qualities. Other great vegetables are garlic, one of natures best natural
medicinal plants, beans, peas, carrots and potatoes.
Fruit
Higher in calories than vegetables yet usually low in fat, all fruits
are beneficial to health and including at least one piece of fruit per
day into you diet should be a top priority. If you are a snacker, make
that snack a piece of fruit and your body will thank you.
If you consider the health benefits of just eating an apple a day you
will soon recognize the importance of including fresh fruit into your
eating habits. It's luscious to eat, full of energy giving fructose
sugar and importantly, full of fiber to keep you healthy. Eat more fruit,
it tastes good and is actually good for you too.
Bran and Grains
Bran and grains cover a range of foods including bread, oats and breakfast
cereals. Bran and grains give the bowels roughage which will lessen
the risk of bowel cancer.
Chicken, Fish and Lean Red Meat
Chicken, fish and red meat provide essential protein for muscle development.
Have a serving each day with chicken and fish being the better options.
These are lower in cholesterol than red meats. Always trim the fat from
all meat.
Eggs
Cholesterol fears have turned the humble egg into a bad guy, but nutrition
experts now believe the amount of cholesterol in eggs has a minor effect
on blood cholesterol. The biggest problem with eggs is how they are
cooked and what other food do you eat with the egg.
Eggs are actually a very healthy food packed with nutrition. One egg
contains just 80 calories, yet contains protein, 13 essential nutrients,
vitamin E, iron and zinc plus small amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin,
two carotenes that support healthy vision and may help prevent age-related
blindness.
Eggs that are boiled, scrambled or poached are best. Avoid frying them
and the humble egg can be back on your plate again with out being in
the bad food group.
Bad Foods
Bad foods include chocolate, cakes, pastries, cookies, soda drinks,
sweets and anything made with added, refined sugar, flour or processed
white rice. During the refining process, the majority of the minerals
and vitamins are removed, and these foods behave like pure sugar when
they enter the body. They give a quick high and the unused calories
get stored as fat deposits.
Chips, potato crisps, French fries, anything battered and deep fried
will only cause you to become overweight as the trans fatty acids will
be stored as fat and stop the metabolism from doing it's natural job
of burning fat as energy.
Soft drinks are full of sugar and are in the class of the worst type
of food for health. If you must drink soda type beverages, drink diet
soda or sugar free. Both Coca Cola and Pepsi make a sugar free zero
calorie drink which tastes as good as their full sugar counterpart.
If you want to die early, eat more bad foods such as take away,
fried foods, potato chips, pies, pastries, soft drinks, sweets, desserts
and highly processed foods. They cause diabetes, have high cholesterol
counts, give high blood pressure and you will get fat. What better way
to die... stuff yourself with bad food and die young.
Bad Fats
High fat diets raise blood pressure and cholesterol levels, can cause
bad blood sugar levels, cause liver stagnation, diabetes and a whole
host of life threatening illnesses, which all leads to depression and
weight gain.
Hydrogenated fats are the results of a process that hardens liquid
vegetable oils. Potato chips, chocolate, sweets, ice cream, pastries
and baked goods all contain hydrogenated fats. The hydrogenated fats
change into the ever more dangerous trans-fatty acids which have been
shown to cause diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Trans-fatty acids
also cause you to gain weight as they interfere with the metabolism
and breakdown of essential fatty acids. They increase the bad cholesterol
in the body and deplete the good.
