Keys to a Healthy Diet: Balance, Variety and Moderation
Are you among the millions of folks who started the New Year shouldering the weight of another year's resolution to go on a diet? Good news, you're not alone. Bad news, you're not necessarily in the best company. Researcher's say that 6 out of 10 people fall off the diet bandwagon within the first 6 days. Ouch!
Maybe the problem isn't necessarily you! Maybe it's your resolution.
Instead of resolving to go on a diet, which we all know, implies a temporary change - not a lifestyle change, deprivation and often defeat, a more reasonable approach might be one that includes variety, balance and moderation.
Balance Balancing your food intake over several days is more important than a strict balance at each meal. In real life, there are days we eat more or less than others. Schedules, hunger, hormones, and many other things play a role in what and how much we eat on a daily basis - that’s normal. What hurts this balance are things like unnecessary fasting, binge eating, too-strict-dieting or routinely skipping meals. Balance also means including items from the different food groups so we ensure that overall, we get all the essential nutrients necessary to optimal health and wellness.
Variety Balance and variety go hand in hand when it comes to eating a healthful diet. Variety tells us to choose different foods within each food group. Choosing a variety helps ensure that your food selections are providing you with all of the nutrients you need. It’s great if you love and eat carrots every day because you’ll get lots of vitamin A but you’ll miss out on the much-needed folate you’d get if you included some broccoli.
Variety also helps to keep things interesting so that your taste buds and senses are kept entertained. Eating the same thing every day can be boring and that can make it easy to go astray.
Moderation Moderation comes into play in a healthy diet because if you deprive yourself of your favorite foods, you will most likely want them even more and end up eating more than you should. The key is to focus on moderating intake instead of eliminating foods.
Moderation also means watching portion size. You can overdo a good thing just as you can overdo a not-so-good thing. For example, at GreenGourmetToGo, food is prepared in portioned containers to help you eat moderate portions. At home and in restaurants, think about how you can stick to eating moderate portions.
Eating well does not have to be difficult but it does require some common sense, a little planning and the desire to make a change. It may take time to get used to these changes but if you approach your diet with the long term in mind you’ll consider every meal an opportunity to get one step closer to your goal.