10 Simple steps to a healthier diet

If high among your New Year’s to-do list is to eat healthier, or to lose weight, you may be tempted to try a fad diet, but that’s not necessarily going to work for a long-term solution. On the flip side, who wants to give up the things we know are bad for us, those foods that taste ‘really’ good?

“You should be free to enjoy your food and to eat anything you want, you just need to combine your foods well,” says registered holistic nutritionist Joy Smith.

While most people associate ‘healthier’ with cutting out all their favourite treats, there are, Smith says, a few simple ways to eating healthier that don’t have to drastically change your lifestyle, but that you can easily incorporate into the way you already eat. The first step to eating healthy is knowing what you’re eating, and realising how good or bad it is for you. At that point, you can determine your own portion sizes, and how much of and how often you will eat those things.

“Once you start doing some of these things, you won’t even want to go back to how you used to eat before. And, you’ll loose excess weight, over time too,” Smith added.

Here are her10 simple suggestions on how to eating healthier that will drastically change your health without overhauling the way you live:

1. CUT THE SUGAR. Try to cut added sugar from your diet significantly – or totally, if you can manage to. You can’t control how much sugar comes to you in packaged juices, for instance, but you can control the amount of sugar you add to drinks and food in your home. Take small steps: if you use two spoons of sugar in your tea, consciously cut that to one, if you add sugar to mixed drinks or juices, again, half or cut that amount significantly.

2. CUT DOWN ON SIMPLE CARBS AND EMPTY CALORIES. Yup, that means ease off the candy, white bread, sodas, ice cream, cake and cookies. Those simple carbohydrates are high in sugar, and the spike blood sugar and insulin levels, and since they don’t really add any useful nutrients yet increase caloric intake they are considered empty calories. That’s not to say you can’t indulge at all, but when you do, be conscious of how much and how often, and keep portions of these foods to a minimum.

3. DRINK MORE WATER. There are many ways to go about this, one is simply to consciously increase the amount of water you drink (8 glasses is a good rule of thumb), the other is to cut the number of sweet or flavoured drinks you have. Those who just can’t get used to foregoing fizzy soft drinks, try sparkling water (club soda works) with a dash of lime, and instead of sweetened packaged juices, drink coconut water.

4. DON’T OVEREAT. The old maxim, eat to live, don’t live to eat is one of those that will never die, for one simple reason – overeating is the cause of much weight gain, and digestive problems.

Strive to achieve a regular eating system and eat only when you are hungry. You may decide to have 4 – 5 small meals over the course of the day, or three balanced meals at regular times – that depends entirely on your metabolism. But when you do eat, keep your portion sizes manageable and stop eating when you feel full. Also, drinking before – not while – eating makes you feel fuller faster, and you’ll find you eat less.

5. CLEAN YOUR GUT. Cooked foods don’t have enzymes, once food is heated above 118ºF all enzymes are denatured, so your body now has to provide enzymes for you to digest that food.

Some people will find that digestive enzymes (available at health food stores) taken before they eat will help them digest their food better, but for most people it’s just a lot simpler to naturally introduce enzymes before or while eating. For the average person having a combination of raw and cooked foods in each meal can bring in enzymes, and help you digest better.

6. EAT YOUR VEGGIES AND YOUR FRUITS. They give you well-needed minerals, fibre and antioxidants. And if the thought of more vegetables resurrects unhappy childhood memories, be creative. Utilise interesting combinations of various types of veggies, or make a salad dressing that suits your taste.

Try olive oil and red wine vinegar (available at many supermarkets) for a healthy, fat-free tasty dressing. High in fibre, fruits are good all through the day, but between the hours of 4am and 12pm, the body’s natural elimination time, it’s an even more compelling time to partake. Snacking on fruits instead of sugary or salty snacks during the day and opting for fruit instead of dessert are other simple ways of getting more fruit into your diet.

7. DON’T FRY. Bake, grill, steam, stew, braise, broil or roast any food you’d otherwise consider frying. One gram of fat brings 9 calories, so try to stay away, but if you really must fry, consider substituting water with herbs and spices added (for meals like stir-fry). If you absolutely must fry with oil, use olive oil, which is an unsaturated fat.

8. EAT QUALITY FATS. You can’t cut fats out of your diet completely, because your body needs at the very least 800 calories each day to function and fats provide an essential component of your dietary need. You can, however, cut dangerous fats and replace them with ‘good’ fats.

Fats to stay away from are saturated fats and trans fatty acids, like butter and margarine. These fats contribute to heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, hypertension and obesity. Good fats are unsaturated fats (mono and poly), omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, found in fish, extra virgin olive oil, nuts, seeds and foods like avocado.

9. INCREASE YOUR FIBRE INTAKE. Fibre is very important in the body’s cleansing process, providing the roughage needed for good digestion. You don’t have to do any drastic changes to make drastic changes in your fibre intake though.

You can choose fruits instead of sweet desserts, eat brown rice instead of white rice, switch from white bread to whole-wheat or whole-grain bread, and ditch the frosted flakes for the raisin bran. Besides having less sugar, these foods are metabolised slower and are more filling leaving you with more energy during the day and fewer cravings.

10. REDUCE, SUBSTITUTE. EXPERIMENT. If you cook or bake by recipies, before you start, look at the ingredients needed and see where you can cut down or substitute ingredients. Coconut milk or soy milk works instead of cow’s milk (although the taste may take a little getting used to); brown sugar or honey instead of white sugar; whole wheat or cornmeal can be mixed with white flour.

Also, try new things, now that you know which foods are healthy and which are not. Joy Smith is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist. contact her at 978-2166 or by email: naturalessentials@yahoo.com