Variety.
A nutritious diet is one that includes around 30 different foods each
day. Food
variety is achieved by eating a mixture of foods across the whole
range of food types (e.g. fruits, vegetables, cereals, meat, fish
and dairy products). Eat a range of foods within these food types
(e.g. cereals can be wheat, oat, rye, rice or barley). In this way,
the nutritional benefits of each different food can be gained.
Antioxidant Foods.
Foods rich in vitamin E and flavonoids are important in the healthy
diet and may help protect against conditions like heart disease and
certain types of cancer. These foods include vegetables, fruits, vegetable
seed oils (e.g. canola oil, sunflower oil), nuts, soybeans, tea and
grape products.
Dietary Fibre.
Including fibre-rich foods in the diet can decrease the risks of heart
disease and intestinal disorders. Approximately 30g of fibre per day
is an ideal amount for good health. Good sources of dietary fibre
include fresh, raw fruits and vegetables as well as wholegrain and
wholemeal foods (brown rice, cooked oats, and wholemeal bread).
Water.
The Healthy Eating Diet recommends a daily water intake of at least
6 to 8 glasses.
Low
Saturated Fats.
Saturated fats increase the risks of certain diseases (e.g. heart
conditions) and increase blood cholesterol levels more than eating
cholesterol-rich foods. Saturated fats are found in most animal products.
Lamb and beef contain large amounts of saturated fats; chicken contain
a slightly lower amount and game meats (e.g. kangaroo and deer) have
a lower level still. Products derived from these animal fats also
have a high content of saturated fat (e.g. dripping, butter, cheese
and cream). Coconut oil, coconut cream, coconut milk and palm-kernel
oil are all high in saturated fat. Saturated fats should make up less
than 8% of the total daily caloric intake.
Alcohol.
If you drink alcohol, you should immediately abandoned it.
Salt.
Choose low salt foods and use salt sparingly.
Advise
Choose low-fat cuts of meat.
Trim any excess fat from meat before cooking (this includes removing
the skin from chicken and turkey).
Use low fat cooking techniques.
Such as steaming and grilling, rather than frying. Use low fat dairy products.
Such as skim milk and reduced fatcheeses,yoghurts and creams. If spreading
margarine on bread, use a polyunsaturated variety and keep the scraping
thin. A scraping of avocado is a healthier alternative to margarine
or butter. Butter contains a lot of saturated fat, which should be
kept to a minimum in the Health Eating Diet.
Moderate
Unsaturated Fats.
Unsaturated fats should replace most of the saturated
fat in a healthy diet. Unsaturated fats help to lower blood cholesterol
levels and improve general health. Omega-3 fatty acids are unsaturated
dietary fats found in dark-fleshed fish such as tuna, mackerel and
sardines. Try to eat at least two fish meals per week (preferably
fish that contains abundant natural oils, such as those listed above).
Monounsaturated fats are found in olive oil, canola oil and some cold
pressed oils. Omega-6 Fatty Acids are found mainly in plant foods
such as seeds, nuts and vegetable oils. These oils include safflower,
sunflower, soybean and cottonseed oils.
Cholesterol.
Moderate amounts of cholesterol can be eaten by people without cholesterol
problems.
Sugars.
Only moderate amounts of sugars and foods containing added sugars
should be eaten.
Breakfast.
For added variety, try untoasted muesli with added sunflower and pumpkin
seeds, served with yoghurt and a mixture of fresh or dried fruits.
Lunch.
A sandwich made on multigrain bread with cheese, chutney, tomato,
lettuce and avocado.
- Try filling sandwiches with lots of salad vegetables and using small
servings of lean meat, skinless chicken or fish or a reduced fat cheese.
Dinner.
Chopped lamb fillet cooked with salt-reduced soy and ginger, served
with stir-fried vegetables OR
- A large serving of pasta with a small
serve of sauce.
- For dessert, try couscous with added
nuts and dried fruit.
Best ways to step
up exercise levels
You might want to achieve a healthy balance
in your life, but be slightly intimidated by the thought of doing
physical activity.
The prospect of doing something that hasn't been done for years or
that which pushes the boundaries of your "comfort zone" can put back
your plans for a new, healthy you. But physical activity can be anything
that uses muscle groups and which raises the pulse rate and the good
news is that this may be done any time, any way.
We all do 30 minutes of exercise each day. There are simple things
you can do each day to be more active and increase your fitness
without the need to invest in expensive equipment or parading your
body in a crowded gym. Mentally and physically, as long as you get
slightly breathless and can feel your heart working, you'll reap
the benefits of your new regime.
Get out and about
Take a stroll around a local park, take the dog for a walk or treat
your kids to a session on the swings. Get out and enjoy some fresh
air and a little exertion.
Renovate a room
A little DIY is great physical activity, whether you choose to lay
new floorboards or just give the walls a lick of paint. And, when
you're done, you get the extra benefits of a sense of achievement
and a beautiful new room in which to live.
Get physical!
Investigate pedestrian paths so that you can walk to work or at
least part of the way there if it's too far. Alternatively, get
on your bike and cycle in: the best bit is, you'll save money too.
Clean the house
Getting deep down and dusty with the vacuum cleaner or polishing
up those windows are great ways to keep active, even if circumstances
don't allow you to get out much. Have a garden? Then mow the lawn
or weed the flowerbeds.
Occupy your hands!
Even when watching TV there are plenty of activities you can be
doing. Try stretching or counting sit-ups, or invest in an exercise
bike to slough away those kilometres during your favourite TV show.
Energise your office behaviour
Take the stairs and not the elevator, walk to and talk to a colleague
instead of emailing them and make sure you take a lunch break for
ten to twenty minutes of strolling around some shops or a nearby
park.
Planned exercise
Of course, you can slot in planned physical activity to your routine
too! Find an aerobics class you like, or book a squash court for
a weekly showdown. Many people need motivation: try and find a friend
or sport buddy who will keep you going even when your drive is flagging.
Not all sport has to be high impact, either and why not give yoga
or swimming a go?
Pay in advance!
Join up to a club or society, or enlist in a fun run. As well as
the camaraderie of other people around you, it's amazing how motivating
physical activity can be when you've already paid good dollars for
it!
Secrets of Successful Weight Loss No Special Diets, Programs Necessary
The secret of losing weight and keeping
it off isn't really a secret at all -- no fad diet, no special fat-burning
pill, no celebrity-endorsed weight-loss organization. The largest
survey ever on long-term weight loss shows that most successful weight-loss
veterans did it all on their own, without using expensive commercial
diet programs, dietary supplements, special foods or meal substitutes,
or drugs.
The survey, conducted and published by Consumer Reports, questioned
more than 32,000 dieters and found 83% of those who had kept the extra
pounds off from more than a year did it without any gimmicks. In fact,
just 14% of those who kept the weight off for more than five years
ever signed up with other commercial diet programs, and even fewer
used meal replacements such as Slim Fast.
Researchers say their findings debunk the conviction that you need
help from a diet guru or special meal plan to lose weight. And the
biggest contributor to dieting success may not be what you eat anyway,
but burning those calories with a regular exercise routine. Eight
out of 10 of the successful dieters who tried exercising three or
more times a week ranked it as their No. 1 dieting strategy. Although
walking was the most popular form of exercise for long-term success,
nearly 30% added weight lifting to their routine to increase calorie-burning
muscle mass. But not everyone who tries to lose weight is successful
at it.
Only about a quarter of the dieters shed at least 10% of their starting
weight and kept it off for at least a year, a standard definition
of weight-loss success. Researchers say there is no one-size-fits-all
diet plan for everyone, but the survey did reveal some general tips
and strategies that served the weigh-loss achievers well.
Control your blood sugar. Refined carbohydrates create a surge
in insulin that makes blood sugar levels plummet and leaves you
feeling hungry. Substitute whole grains and high-fiber foods for
white bread, potatoes, and pasta.
Pack on the protein. Eating enough lean protein can make you
feel full and slows the absorption of food.
Fool yourself with volume. Adding water-filled
vegetables and fruits can trick you into feeling full because
you can eat more than with calorie-dense foods.
Don't deny fat. Eating fat-free cookies, pretzels, and other
treats that contain refined carbohydrates can lead to bingeing.
Instead, allow yourself up to 30% of your daily calories to come
from fat, particularly mono- and poly-unsaturated vegetable oils,
nuts, and fish oil.
Stay with it. More than half the dieting success stories in
the survey said they applied these strategies to their diets every
day.
Vitamin E Eases Aching Muscles
Vitamin E may help ease muscle aches after a tough workout,
a new study suggests. Researchers believe that the antioxidant
mops up the damaging by-products created by a strenuous workout.
Here's what happens during your workout: As the body increases
its use of oxygen, by-products of oxygen metabolism -- called
free radicals -- can do damage to muscle tissue. This damage can
result in soreness and fatigue after strenuous exercise.
In fact, "that oxidative stress may increase with age," writes
lead author Jennifer M. Sacheck, PhD, a researcher in the Antioxidant
Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston.
Those who are already physically fit probably do not need to
take a vitamin E supplement to ward off what little post-workout
soreness they might feel, Sacheck says. However "'weekend warrior'
types who are not always exercising on a regular basis may receive
greater benefits to supplementation."
Previous studies conducted by Sacheck's team had already revealed
that vitamin E was capable of soaking up excess free radicals.
In their study, they had two groups of men -- one group ages
23 to 35, and older men between 66 and 78 -- take either a placebo
or a 1,000 IU supplement of vitamin E every day for three months.
They tested the athletes' soreness after a 45-minute downhill
run at the beginning of the test -- before they had taken the
vitamin E supplement -- and at the end of the three-month period.
"Muscle damage, oxidative stress and inflammation all still
occurred following intense exercise," Sacheck says in a news release.
"However, these responses (were) blunted in both young and older
men" who took vitamin E.
Young men saw the most benefits in terms of reduced muscle soreness
and damage, but older men also benefited.
Whether women can get the same benefit is not clear, since circulating
estrogens could reduce the potency of the antioxidant. However,
"following menopause and the loss of extra estrogen, I would predict
that older women would respond similarly to older men.
While participants took a relatively high dose of vitamin E,
average person could probably get the same benefits from lower
doses of between 200 to 400 IU per day.
Vitamin
D prevents colon cancer But high doses can do more harm than
good: scientists
Vitamin D works to prevent colon cancer by detoxifying the body’s
own digestive products, and the finding may help others develop drugs
to prevent the disease: scientists.
THEY WARNED that taking huge doses of the vitamin would do more harm
than good, causing the body to pull calcium out of the bones, but
said drugs might be designed to mimic the effects of the vitamin.
And, they added, the best way to prevent colon cancer is to eat less
fat. Colon cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the United
States and other industrialized countries, after lung cancer. It is
strongly linked to a diet heavy in red meat and animal fat, as well
as to smoking and heavy alcohol use. “Our findings suggest a new look
at the relationship between nutrition and cancer, particularly how
vitamin D protects against colon cancer,” David Mangelsdorf, a professor
of pharmacology and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, said in a statement.
What's your risk for colon cancer?
“The rate of colorectal cancer is much higher in the United States
— where a high-fat diet is common — than in Japan, where people don’t
eat a lot of fat and colorectal cancer is almost nonexistent. But
no one has understood why that is.” Writing in the journal Science,
Mangelsdorf and colleagues said they found at least part of the answer
lies in lithocholic acid, a bile acid produced to help digest fat.
BODY’S MOST TOXIC PRODUCT
“Lithocholic acid is probably the most toxic compound that your body
naturally makes, so you have to have a way to get rid of it. “Normally,
bile acids are made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Bile
acids solubilize foods.
When you eat a high-fat diet, your body makes more bile acids.” Usually
they are efficiently recycled, with the exception of lithocholic acid,
Mangelsdorf said. “It does a variety of bad things. One of those bad
things is induce changes in DNA. If you give animals high concentrations,
just directly put it into the intestine, they get colon cancer.” But
laboratory animals given doses of vitamin D and then given lithocholic
acid do not get colon cancer, he said. Sources: NBC's 'Today' show,
American Cancer Society, Associated Press Colon cancer patients also
have high concentrations of lithocholic acid, Mangelsdorf said.
Vitamin D is necessary for the body to absorb calcium —that is why
milk is fortified with it — but this finding explains its role in
colon cancer. “The surprise from this study is that the vitamin D
receptor, which we normally think of as mediating calcium, also has
another role, which is to detoxify lithocholic acid,” Mangelsdorf
said. Vitamin D is also toxic in large amounts, so people at risk
of colon cancer cannot take large amounts and hope to prevent it.
Too much causes the body to over-absorb calcium, even pulling it from
the bones, which causes a range of problems.
“The most important thing you can do to extend life is to get less
fat in your diet,” he said. He said humans evolved to be able to handle
a little fat, but nothing like the overwhelming flood of calories
that Americans — and to a lesser degree people in rich countries the
world over — inflict on their bodies. “The problem is the system gets
overwhelmed,” he said.
Food
variety is achieved by eating a mixture of foods across the whole
range of food types (e.g. fruits, vegetables, cereals, meat, fish
and dairy products). Eat a range of foods within these food types
(e.g. cereals can be wheat, oat, rye, rice or barley). In this way,
the nutritional benefits of each different food can be gained.
saturated
fat in a healthy diet. Unsaturated fats help to lower blood cholesterol
levels and improve general health. Omega-3 fatty acids are unsaturated
dietary fats found in dark-fleshed fish such as tuna, mackerel and
sardines. Try to eat at least two fish meals per week (preferably
fish that contains abundant natural oils, such as those listed above).
Monounsaturated fats are found in olive oil, canola oil and some cold
pressed oils. Omega-6 Fatty Acids are found mainly in plant foods
such as seeds, nuts and vegetable oils. These oils include safflower,
sunflower, soybean and cottonseed oils.
tomato,
lettuce and avocado.
vegetables and fruits can trick you into feeling full because
you can eat more than with calorie-dense foods.