While gathering and reading all of the research I found, writing this article made me more aware of what I haven’t been doing and should be doing to achieve a balanced healthy and nutritious diet. I have now set a checklist menu plan for myself that I can follow as a weekly guide. What I will be doing is adding these essential nutritional food items to my weekly list of favorite things to eat to make sure I maintain a healthier balanced diet. Additionally, I’ve set a goal for myself to take a 20-minute walk at least three times a week, monitoring the amount of my sugar and sodium intake, reading ingredients on labels, nutritional value, and added preservatives.
How Can Women Eat Healthier?
By avoiding or limiting a lot of various foods with added sugars, saturated and trans-fat, and sodium (salt). Eating healthier means to make sure you are adding fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein, dairy, and not eating or drinking too many calories for your body type. It is important to limit the alcoholic beverages you drink as well as limit or avoid soda filled with sugar.
Helpful Checklist and Suggestions: (check with your healthcare provider regarding different guidelines regarding your age, current health condition, or various food allergies)
Plan on filling your breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates with the various foods from the five food groups listed below. Eat fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and dairy at each meal. Eat more vegetables, snack on fruits and nuts, and cook at home more often each week. Planning a menu to start you off to a healthier balanced diet might be a good idea.
The Essential Five Food Groups:
1) Fruits and Vegetables. Everyone needs to eat fruits and vegetables every day. Try to fill about half of your plate with fruits or vegetables at meals. Most women do not get enough fruits and vegetables. Eat whole fruit (not juice) and try different types of vegetables during the week.
2) Protein. Eat different types of foods with protein, including seafood, lean meats, poultry, eggs, legumes (beans and peas), nuts, seeds, and soy products. Most women do not eat enough seafood to meet weekly recommendations of 8 to 10 ounces (or about two servings a week).
3) Grains. Make at least half your grains whole grains, such as brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, or whole-wheat bread. Most women do not eat enough whole grains.
4) Dairy. Women should get 3 cups of dairy each day, but most women get only half that amount if they can’t drink milk, try to eat low-fat plain yogurt or low-fat cheese. Dairy products are among the best food sources of the mineral calcium, but some vegetables such as kale and broccoli also have calcium, as do some fortified foods such as fortified soymilk, fortified cereals, and many fruit juices. Most young girls ages 9 to 18 and women older than 50 need more calcium for good bone health.
5) Oils. When cooking use oils from plants instead of solid fats like butter, margarine, or coconut oil. Try to do some research on the best type of oil to use. Most women eat too much solid fat through packaged foods like chips or salad dressing, and not enough healthy fats like olive oil or the type of fat in seafood.
Drinking Water is Very Important:
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends for women, a total of 9 cups of water each day. Pregnant women should drink about 10 cups of water daily. Those who breastfeed need about 12 cups of water per day.
Drinking Coffee/Tea:
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it is safe for most women to drink three to five cups of coffee a day with a maximum intake of 400 milligrams of caffeine. (Caffeine content can vary depending on the type of coffee/tea, but an average 8-ounce cup of coffee has 95 milligrams.) However, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding the rules are different. Please check with your OBGYN before adding caffeine into your diet.
Protein Shakes and Salads:
By adding good healthy ingredients such as milk, unsweetened soy, almond, or coconut milk, yogurt, fruits, avocado, and green vegetables to a homemade shake is a great source of essential nutrition. You can go to a health food store and ask for a good flavored protein mix supplement to add to a shake. For those of you, like me, who do not like eating good green vegetables, you can hardly taste the veggies in flavored protein shakes. For salads add in Kale, fresh spinach, broccoli, sliced avocado, a hardboiled egg, slivered or chopped nuts, various fresh berries, diced apples, and low sugar craisins to your regular lettuce choice. Try to buy salad dressings with a lower sugar content, or use olive oil with either red or balsamic vinegar.
Source of information: Various Google Searches
Until next time, stay safe and well!
Commentaires