Nutrition

 

Everyone knows that nutrition and eating right is the basis of leading a healthy lifestyle, but it’s not always easy to make the shift from eating the tasty foods you’ve come to know and love to eating those that will benefit your health and keep your body the well oiled machine it was intended to be.  With the holidays now behind us, it’s time to get back to basics and make a concerted effort to get in our daily doses of fruits and veggies, balancing out the protein and grains we find it easier to consume. Whether you have struggled with your weight for most of your life, are fighting some postpartum weight gain, or just lost your way off the road to health by getting caught up in the pace of everyday life, it’s important that you not overthink this whole nutrition thing, and you recall that basic food pyramid we were all taught in grade school.  Using this as your primary guideline, along with some common sense and conscious decision making, it shouldn’t take long for you to get back on track.

 

While every metabolism is different, and you may be one of the millions of people struggling with health problems of some sort, eating natural foods (not necessarily organic, unless this is the route you choose to follow) will never fail you.  Foods that are marketed as being fast, convenient and easy are often overprocessed, full of preservatives and nitrates.  While there are many different schools of thought on this, it seems common sense that the more a food is modified from its natural state, fewer nutritional benefits will remain.  The item may be fortified with additional vitamins and minerals, so it’s up to you whether the trade off is worth forsaking the natural nutrition.  Many that choose to stick to natural foods are religious about their multivitamins, which is a good habit regardless of your daily diet.

 

We’ve all heard that drinking eight glasses of water a day is crucial to maintaining our body’s natural balance, but did you know that if you are a coffee drinker or have a soda habit, you should increase your water intake by two glasses for every one cup of coffee consumed? Water not only nourishes our cells but it keeps everything moving along, with organs able to perform at optimal levels.  There are many dedicated water drinkers that swear by the “half your weight rule”.. take your current weight and divide it in half; this is the number of ounces of water you would drink each day. If that’s not a motivator to lose a few pounds and be ‘rewarded’ by having your required water intake decrease, I don’t know what is! But those that do it, swear by it. Don’t worry about this amount of water taking a toll on your kidneys; you would have to consume far more than this to do any damage.  Think of the calories that will be burned as you routinely walk to the rest room!

 

Without following some sort of nutritional guidelines, you are setting yourself up for physical failure of one type or another. You may be one of those people that has a high metabolism and has always been able to ‘eat whatever you want’, but let’s get real: without nutritional foods, your body will ultimately suffer; maybe not today, but it will.  We are living in a time where obesity is at an all-time high, where children are developing diabetes due to weight problems, where Americans are all about convenience. I can’t think of a more inconvenient thing than being overweight and feeling like I can’t do the things I enjoy doing.  Without properly feeding your body, you won’t have the energy to exercise and you will miss out on some valuable quality sleep. Think about the way you are currently eating and make a pact with yourself to put better quality fuel into your body. Don’t exchange the convenience of a fast drive-thru meal for the nutrition of a homecooked one or one that was made fresh. This may not sound easy, but it can be done. For those of you that struggle with meal planning and how to get you and your family on track, check back often for healthy recipes and tips to make the most of your time in the kitchen.