Transitioning to a Healthier Diet
No matter what your current diet may be there is always room for improvement. It is never too late to change, however, too drastic of a change in a short time frame can be overwhelming. If you are having trouble, your best option may be a transition phase where you slowly, over weeks or months, make small changes. It is important to strive for progress, not perfection, so there is no need to beat yourself up over a regression during your transition. Love yourself "in the now" and know that you are heading towards a healthier you.
It is possible to improve your health while still consuming animal products but the idea is to limit meat and dairy products by replacing them with fruits and vegetables. The Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services recommends up to 9 servings a day of fruits and vegetables (1) and the Harvard School of Public Health recommends up to 13 servings of them every single day (2). The first step to move away from the Standard American Diet (SAD diet) is to include more fruits and vegetables. A good way to start including more fruit is to eat them for breakfast. Bananas, apples, pears, oranges, mangos, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, and cantaloupe are great fruits that can be found at most grocery stores year round. Fruits are high volume low calorie foods unlike the typical foods of our time. For example, a tablespoon of butter has the same amount of calories as a medium sized banana. In order to eat more fruit there will be a period where your stomach adjusts to the high volume. You may feel full after eating two medium sized apples even though it is only 100 calories. Over time you will come to find that you can easily eat a couple apples, bananas, pears, or whichever fruits you enjoy the most.
I recommend getting all your servings of fruit for breakfast. Fruit digests quicker than other food and I find eating all my fruit at breakfast gives me all the energy I require to do the physical work that I do without feeling groggy or lethargic. Green leafy vegetables are probably the most overlooked group in the vegetable kingdom. For lunch and dinner it's good to include both a side salad and two vegetables. No matter how small that salad and the servings of vegetables may be it's better than nothing! Refer to Harvard's "Healthy Eating Plate" for a visual example of a healthier dinner (3). Every cell in the human body runs on carbohydrates in the form of glucose while the brain runs on glucose almost exclusively (4). It's important to limit fatty and fried foods and consume enough whole food carbohydrates. It is best to avoid candy because these "foods" are full of processed sugars, fats, and preservatives that provide calories but not many nutrients.
An often overlooked aspect of a healthy diet is water. 75% of Americans are dehydrated on a daily basis (5). It's impossible to overstate the importance of staying hydrated because this affects all parts of your health from the physical to the mental. How do you know if you are dehydrated? An easy way to tell is your urine. If it is dark yellow or has a strong aroma then you are dehydrated and need to drink some water. If you are thirsty you are already dehydrated and need to drink water. A good routine to adopt is drinking water when you rise in the morning, before breakfast. You can also drink water before meals and it is best to wait at least 30 minutes after eating to drink water. This is because if you drink water right after eating, the water dilutes your stomach acids and it will take longer for the food to digest. Soft drinks do not hydrate like water and are best avoided. If you are thirsty your best option is water.
1) http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/take-the-fruit-and-vegetable-challenge
2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vegetables-full-story/
3) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/
4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/
5) http://www.medicaldaily.com/75-americans-may-suffer-chronic-dehydration-according-doctors-247393
It is possible to improve your health while still consuming animal products but the idea is to limit meat and dairy products by replacing them with fruits and vegetables. The Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services recommends up to 9 servings a day of fruits and vegetables (1) and the Harvard School of Public Health recommends up to 13 servings of them every single day (2). The first step to move away from the Standard American Diet (SAD diet) is to include more fruits and vegetables. A good way to start including more fruit is to eat them for breakfast. Bananas, apples, pears, oranges, mangos, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, and cantaloupe are great fruits that can be found at most grocery stores year round. Fruits are high volume low calorie foods unlike the typical foods of our time. For example, a tablespoon of butter has the same amount of calories as a medium sized banana. In order to eat more fruit there will be a period where your stomach adjusts to the high volume. You may feel full after eating two medium sized apples even though it is only 100 calories. Over time you will come to find that you can easily eat a couple apples, bananas, pears, or whichever fruits you enjoy the most.
I recommend getting all your servings of fruit for breakfast. Fruit digests quicker than other food and I find eating all my fruit at breakfast gives me all the energy I require to do the physical work that I do without feeling groggy or lethargic. Green leafy vegetables are probably the most overlooked group in the vegetable kingdom. For lunch and dinner it's good to include both a side salad and two vegetables. No matter how small that salad and the servings of vegetables may be it's better than nothing! Refer to Harvard's "Healthy Eating Plate" for a visual example of a healthier dinner (3). Every cell in the human body runs on carbohydrates in the form of glucose while the brain runs on glucose almost exclusively (4). It's important to limit fatty and fried foods and consume enough whole food carbohydrates. It is best to avoid candy because these "foods" are full of processed sugars, fats, and preservatives that provide calories but not many nutrients.
An often overlooked aspect of a healthy diet is water. 75% of Americans are dehydrated on a daily basis (5). It's impossible to overstate the importance of staying hydrated because this affects all parts of your health from the physical to the mental. How do you know if you are dehydrated? An easy way to tell is your urine. If it is dark yellow or has a strong aroma then you are dehydrated and need to drink some water. If you are thirsty you are already dehydrated and need to drink water. A good routine to adopt is drinking water when you rise in the morning, before breakfast. You can also drink water before meals and it is best to wait at least 30 minutes after eating to drink water. This is because if you drink water right after eating, the water dilutes your stomach acids and it will take longer for the food to digest. Soft drinks do not hydrate like water and are best avoided. If you are thirsty your best option is water.
1) http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/take-the-fruit-and-vegetable-challenge
2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vegetables-full-story/
3) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/
4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/
5) http://www.medicaldaily.com/75-americans-may-suffer-chronic-dehydration-according-doctors-247393
