Health Program | News, Views and Reviews on Health Issues

In many ways the refrigerator is the cornerstone of any healthy eating plan.  How you stock that fridge can make a huge difference in the success or failure of any healthy eating plan.  From what foods it contains, to where they are stored, the refrigerator can be vitally important to healthy eating.

The first step should be to take stock of just what the refrigerator contains. The bachelors among us may already be familiar with this process, but taking stock of the fridge means more than just throwing away those foods that have begun to turn green or grow hair.

Taking stock of the contents of the fridge should mean a monthly review of everything it contains.  During this review, separate the healthier foods from the others.  It is important to make sure that you have more low fat, high fiber and low sugar foods than high fat low fiber and high sugar ones.  If the ratio is off, try to shop for healthier foods.

Another great trick for keeping a healthy refrigerator is to hide the less healthy foods.  Try hiding the desserts and other such foods in the crisper, where they will be out of sight and not constantly tempting you.  Since fresh fruits and vegetables tend to dry out if they are not used right away, store them in plain sight to increase their likelihood of being eaten.  Hiding cakes in the produce drawers, and prominently displaying the fruits and vegetables, is a smart way to keep a healthy fridge.

Another tip is to organize the refrigerator into different sections, and to segregate those sections into sometimes foods (unhealthy choices) and everyday foods (healthy choices).  Try to place the healthier foods in the front of the refrigerator, while relegating the unhealthier choices to the back.

Substitution is another great strategy for creating a healthy fridge and a healthy lifestyle.  There are low fat and nonfat versions of literally hundreds of different foods.  Try substituting skim or 1% milk for whole milk, soft margarines for fattier butter, and low fat sour cream for the full fat varieties.  Try replacing fattier meats with leaner ones, or with chicken and fish.  Even a simple change, like substituting a soft margarine for butter, can result in significant savings of saturated fat.

For those families with young children, it is important to involve the entire family in healthy eating lifestyles.  The habits children learn in childhood often follow them throughout their adult lives, so it makes a lot of sense to get them off to a great start.  Try decorating healthy foods with fun stickers, stars, or other colorful items.

Stickers and stars are not the only way to make healthy foods more appealing.  Try storing healthy foods with attractive, delicious toppings to make them more interesting and appealing.  Try storing a container of berries next to the low fat yogurt, or a bottle of chocolate syrup with the 1% milk.  Mixing these foods together is a great way to create healthy snacks quickly.

Another key to creating a healthy refrigerator is to use leftovers wisely.  Leftovers can be very useful, and healthy meals make healthy leftovers.  Try using leftovers as lunches, or as healthy snacks for the next day.

Ready to eat meals are a great way to encourage healthy eating.  Try this handy trick – when you return from your weekly grocery shopping, take the time to create some quick single serving meals and stack them in the fridge.  In addition, try making some quick snacks by cutting up fresh fruits and vegetables and storing them in single serving containers.

Using the freezer space in your refrigerator wisely is important as well. Freezing foods that won’t be used right away is a great way to make your food dollar go further and to provide quick meals for your family.  Try freezing foods in portion sizes.  This will make it easier to eat healthier meals, and it will help ensure everyone gets their favorites.  When looking at portion sizes, remember that the recommended serving size of meat is 3 ounces, roughly equivalent to the size of a deck of playing cards.  The standard serving size for pasta is one cup, while a serving of vegetables is ½ cup.

The freezer can also be a great way to create fun fruit snacks for the entire family.  Freezing healthy fruits like grapes, orange slices and bananas make great snacks for children and adults alike.

By: Keith Ckardwell
Posted:

healthy eating

A slim fast diet plan is what most dieters are looking for. We obviously want to change the way we look and feel about ourselves, but most of us do not want to wait forever to see the results we so desperately want to see. The good news is that there are ways to shed the pounds quickly without killing ourselves with hours of exercise and cutting calories to unsustainable amounts.

It is important to remember that one pound equals 3500 calories. Therefore, to lose one pound on a slim fast diet plan, you must somehow expel 3500 calories from your body, either by diet or by physical activity, or a combination of both. By making small changes in your daily routine, you can easily cut 250-500 calories out of your diet without even noticing that they are even missing. Here are a few ideas of easy ways to cut calories from your diet each day:

* Cutting just one can of soda per day equals 150 calories saved. If you drink a lot of soda, this can mean huge calorie savings throughout a day!
* Drinking regular coffee with low-cal sweetener instead of a late saves up to 400 calories.
* Eat meals on a salad plate. You will automatically eat about 15% less than eating on a larger plate.
* Eat Fruit instead of chocolate. The average candy bar has around 150 calories. Substitute a piece of fruit to satisfy that sweet tooth and save 100 calories.

Add a little more activity to your slim fast diet plan and your calories burned can really add up, too. You do not have to work out for hours per day at a gym to see results. By making simple changes in your daily routine can add up at the end of the week:

* Stand while you work for just two hours per day and burn an extra 100 calories.
* Mowing the lawn for just fifteen minutes will also burn an extra 100 calories.
* Vacuuming will not only make your house cleaner, but will burn 100 calories per half hour!
* Other housework will burn about 100 calories per twenty minutes of cleaning.
* Finding a parking spot that is a five minute walk from the door can burn up to 100 extra calories per day if you walk to and from your car just three times!
* Take the stairs for just 15 minutes per day instead of the elevator and calories will melt away!

As you can see, with just a little bit of effort, you can easily delete 250-500 calories per day. It does not take a lot of planning and effort to lose weight on a slim fast diet plan. If you have the desire to lose the weight and get healthy, you will find ways to make better food choices and to fit physical activity into your everyday life. By tweaking your activity level and eating habits ever so slightly, you can quickly lose one to two pounds per week! This type of slim fast diet plan is excellent for people who do not have time to spend their days worrying about what they are going to eat and when they are going to find time for the gym.

By: Stephen Choy: the Lose Weight Expert
Posted:

I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t count this as a Lost Noticing!

Date Taken: 2009-11-26 13:24:15
Owner: heidi!!

lose weight

As I have written here several times, saving our farmland is vital not only for the food it provides us, and the livelihood it provides our farmers, but because it can promote and protect regional food systems, contributes to environmental quality, and provides fiscal stability to a region.

One of the most enjoyable ways to help save farmland is …
Read More

There are hard ways to lose weight and then there are easier ways to lose weight. One of the easier ways to lose weight is to have a weekly diet plan. A weekly diet plan will allow you to easily switch things up to keep you body guessing as to what you are going to do next and keep it from plateauing.

Have a weekly diet plan, master plan

A Master Plan for the weekly diet plan.

If you have a master plan that covers your menus, water intake, and exercise you can chunk that plan into a weekly diet plan with weekly goals. A weekly diet plan makes the entire process of dieting not so intimidating and the weekly diet plan can keep you motivated.

A weekly diet plan is just plain easier.

If you chunk your diet into a weekly diet plan series, slipping up then becomes a problem only for that week and not your whole diet. Being able to stick with a diet is MUCH more important than how fast or how much weight loss the diet promises to deliver. If you can’t stick to a diet that promises you a 30 pound loss in 30 days, you would have been better off selecting one that only promised 1 to 2 pounds a week that you could stick with.

A weekly diet plan should include a feed day.

Feed days are days on a weekly diet plan where you eat the foods you want to eat. These weekly diet plan breaks keep your body from interpreting your reduced food intake as the onset of starvation. These weekly diet plan breaks will stop you from plateauing and you will actually lose more weight than if you just stuck with low calorie dieting and they are a great thing to look forward to.

A weekly diet plan should include protein.

You should set a weekly amount of lean protein to consume in your weekly diet plan because your body will metabolize its own muscle tissues if you do not give it enough protein. A weekly diet plan should encourage fat loss not just weight loss. The two can be quite different.

A weekly diet plan should not rely on calorie counting.

When a weekly diet plan relies on calorie counting, it focuses you too much on food. You should use an algorithm to choose foods, like Jon Benson’s Ultra Snapp 2.0™. These types of systems are so easy a child could use them and they are important in a weekly diet plan for selecting the right kinds of food. Remember all calories are not created equally.

A weekly diet plan should include water and fiber.

Your weekly diet plan should include 8 glasses of water a day and 30 grams or more of fiber. Your weekly diet plan will give you optimum results if you get that fiber from high fiber foods like beans instead of powder or pills

A weekly diet plan summery.

• Make a master plan
• chunk it into a weekly diet plan that you can change up each week
• Make sure your weekly diet plan has feed days
• Make sure you weekly diet plan provides enough lean protein
• Make sure your weekly diet plan includes 8 glasses of water and 30 grams of fiber per day.
• Don’t count calories on your weekly diet plan; use something like Jon Benson’s Ultra Snapp 2.0™

With a master plan your weekly diet plan should put you on a path to health like you have never experienced before!

By: Christian Walker
Posted:

. . .entdeckt bei einer Freundin

"Fatso´s diet sheet:
- Slim and happy in four weeks
- sadly only: (detailed menu)
- treadmill, jogging, dust-bunny-hunting, Pilates, fitness

last but not least the consideration if the cat could be co-pregnant

Date Taken: 2010-07-31 14:59:57
Owner: Carelinamia

diet plan

The main point to healthy eating habits is to eat right, exercise, and visit your family doctor on a regular basis. These are the main ways to get healthy and stay healthy. When you are healthy and fit you feel good about yourself. But the biggest problem with this is how we eat healthy all the time. Most of us don’t eat healthy foods day in and day out.  

Gone are the days when we would sit down as a family and take our time eating a meal. Nowadays, most families don’t even sit down and have a meal. Most single individuals eat out more than they eat in. Another big problem with trying to eat healthy is the price of healthy foods. Most people may want to eat healthy, but they can’t afford the price of most healthy foods at the local grocery store. It is hard to convince someone that it is better to spend an extra dollar for a healthy loaf instead of paying half that amount for a regular loaf of bread.

Another problem with healthy eating habits is knowing what are the right healthy foods to eat.

It is so easy to find unhealthy foods and let fact it most of us don’t want to take the time required to fix healthy meals. Unless you plan to grow your own healthy foods and prepare your own healthy foods, it can be hard to develop healthy eating habits.

It usually takes something to happen to our health to get us to change the way we eat. When you are in your 20s and 30s you don’t think about the ramifications of the foods you eat. You live to eat fast foods and meals that are prepared in an instant. But when we get older and our health starts to fad, then we decide it time to make some changes to the way we eat.

I think it is human nature to only do the things that we need to do when they are required to be done. But everything we do comes at a price. What we eat is no exception. If you continue to put bad things into your body, at some point in time you will pay a price. Garbage in will produce garbage out. Our bodies can only handle getting junk for so long, and then one day it will tell us that it is feed up.

So instead of waiting for your body to crash and burn, why not start giving your body what it needs to function properly now. The first step in that process is to start eating more healthy foods.

Some of the things you can eat right now to get your body healthy are vegetables, dairy products, and high-protein dishes and so on. You need a certain amount of fat, carbs, etc, which helps to keep you healthy.   You can get a list from your family doctor or you can search the internet to get information on the basic four food groups. If you cannot afford to eat right then maybe you should not eat as much. In addition, do some excising; excising is always good for you. Exercise will increase your health and help you to burn body fat, even if you cannot afford the four basic groups of nutritious foods. In addition, do some research and find ways to get healthy foods at a discount from stores in your area. 

You cannot just jump in and change your bad eating habits overnight. You have to take time to start and to learn. For some of us that have been eating wrong all of our life, this would be hard to do overnight. Then again, others may not have any problems with it. You want to consider your position and move forward.

One of the first things you will notice when you start eating healthy foods is that you feel better and you have more energy. Eating right has a lot to do with how we feel. If we lack nutrients, it can make one feel depressed, ill, and a bear to be around. Since, we get vitamins from our foods; you may want to include natural vitamins in your daily schedule also.

Developing healthy eating habits is not hard, but it does take time and discipline to accomplish. Don’t wait until your body fall apart before you change the way you eat. If you change the way you eat starting today, you will feel better tomorrow.

By: Sean Templeton
Posted:

Eat when hungry, stop when full!

Date Taken: 2010-05-26 19:08:00
Owner: San Mateo County Library

healthy eating

It is common knowledge that healthy eating and fitness of the body is the secret to good health and longevity. But, due to our hectic lifestyles, we often ignore this simple truth and end up feeling tired with hardly any energy to make it through the day. But if you truly wish to change this bad situation for the better, there is hope. There are a number of ways in which you can fit healthy eating in your busy schedule and undo years of self-indulgence.

An unbalanced diet or one deficient in essential nutrients will make you feel weak, lethargic and reduce your performance to below par. Healthy eating and fitness go hand-in-hand. Nutritionists will tell you that you must eat right to look and feel healthy as well as have the energy to lead an active lifestyle. They will also tell you that a portion control diets is the key to reclaiming your health and to do this you must eat a variety of foods from the different food groups. Your daily diet should include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, milk and dairy products, meats, poultry and eggs.

Fitness depends on healthy eating and daily food planner to get the right nutritional value from food you must follow a diet that is rich in fiber. Select foods that have high fiber content like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Your diet should also be low in fats and cholesterol, so go easy on the cheese, butter and margarine. Instead, choose low-fat dairy products and use unsaturated fats like olive and canola oil in your cooking. Meats are a great source of protein but ensure that you eat lean meats so that you don’t consume unwanted fats.

Healthy eating is what fitness is all about and your daily trips to the fast food joint would obviously have to happen no more than once a month. Food from restaurants and takeaways is high in sodium, saturated fats and low in fiber – not a healthy diet if you wish to keep fit. Healthy eating and healthy eating guide also means limiting your sodium and sugar intake as well as taking alcoholic drinks in moderation. Above all, drink plenty of water (at least 8 glasses a day) to keep your body hydrated. Water also helps to move the nutrients throughout your body and flush out the toxins.

The first step to daily healthy eating plans involves a change in food as well as eating behavior. Don’t skip meals – eat three large meals and a couple of mini meals each day. Most of us tend to skip breakfast which is the most important meal of the day. A good healthy eating breakfast increases the metabolism and gives you the energy to start off your day. Also, eating a series of meals through the day ensures that your stomach is not empty, thus preventing you from overeating at meal time.

Serving sizes of food to be assimilated well it is necessary to take time to enjoy your food, so eat and chew slowly. Eating food in the right quantity with the help of meal portion plates is an essential part of healthy eating and in turn, fitness. Watch those portions or better still, use portion control plates and scoopers to make it easier to get the right amount of essential nutrients the body needs.

Healthy eating should be balanced with exercise to achieve fitness of the body as well as the mind. Making a conscious effort to eat healthy foods for a healthy diet and being disciplined enough to exercise at least twice or thrice a week will help with your fitness program as well as your weight management program.

Click for Healthy eating and exercise and Food pyramid for kids

By: Ed Stephens
Posted:

healthy eating