Eat healthy to stay healthy

Permanent healthful eating pattern changes that still allow enjoyment and give you enough to eat is what is crucial. Here are tips on what’s thought to be healthful; ways to find healthful foods you enjoy and eat them more often; and how to begin to reduce the clearly unhealthful foods and to not miss them.

Eat at almost every meal; make a focused effort to always eat breakfast - even if it’s just a wake-up beverage, a piece of fruit or nonfat cheese, and your vitamin supplements; eat healthful snacks if you are hungry between meals or after your evening meal; avoid skipping lunch; and, once you switch to healthful foods, eat all you want - except of the healthful fats and oils you do include - eat those sparingly. Eating enough is extremely important: Doing so avoids getting extra hungry, running short on energy, or reducing your metabolism by triggering your body’s famine response. The following general principles seem to have widespread acceptance and to produce good results for good health.

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables - particularly those that are nutrient dense or are high in soluble fiber

It’s probably also important to be moderate in eating those with a high glycemic index; and to eat whole fruit rather than drinking fruit juice. It’s usually far easier to add more fruit you already like and to learn recipes for vegetable dishes that you enjoy and to add more of those to your meals than it is to just try to eat less of the undesirable foods.

This may well be the most important of the three areas - because of the astonishing array of nutrients and micronutrients in fruits and vegetables that protect your heart and health - and the fact that it can be fun to add more of them you already like; to explore and develop new ways to add dishes and recipes that use them and that you enjoy; and to try fruits that you haven’t eaten or haven’t eaten in a long time.

Avoid or massively reduce animal fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol in your protein foods

In populations with a mostly vegetarian or vegetarian diet that average a daily cholesterol intake of 100 or less and are five percent or less saturated fat by calories there is virtually no heart disease or heart attacks. Only animal foods have cholesterol; and animal foods tend to be both higher in fat and to have fats that are much higher in saturated fat.

Eat beans, whole grains, or nonfat dairy products - or combinations for protein instead of meat, poultry, and fish at least two of your meals each day. Eat fish rather than poultry or chicken. When you do eat meat or chicken - eat smaller amounts, ideally in combination with vegetables; use leaner versions; use nonfat cooking techniques; trim all visible fat; trim skin from poultry; and, try to always eat onions with your meal - studies show they have a very strong de-clogging effect, whether cooked or raw, which will tend to protect you from the saturated fat and cholesterol in your meal. Avoid egg yolks; or use at most one or two a week. Use two egg whites or egg substitutes in cooking. And, try to eat onions with your meal if you do eat egg yolks.

New studies and sources strongly suggest you may find it safest and most effective:

* To use for protein mostly low-glycemic index beans like lentils or black-eyed peas; nonfat dairy foods; and perhaps fish;
* To use grains and starchy foods like pasta, potatoes and brown rice less much frequently and in smaller servings; and
* To use grains like barley, oats, and buckwheat that are either higher in soluble fiber or have lower glycemic indexes or both - and only in moderation; and to eat mostly whole grain foods in moderation or infrequently rather than flour-based foods in quantity.

Reduce your overall fat intake to a maximum of fifteen to twenty-five percent by calories - and saturated fat to five to seven percent

At least in the early stages - it may well be more effective to approach ten percent fat by calories. This means virtually no added fats or oils and avoiding any animal food that is other than its nonfat or lowest fat version.

Avoid or cut down sharply dairy fats like cream, butter, full fat cheese, whole milk; and two percent lowfat milk - butterfat is 65 to 70 percent saturated and these foods range from thirty five to one hundred percent fat! And, avoid margarine and processed foods that contain partially hydrogenated oils - there is evidence that the transfats these contain are at least as bad for you as saturated fat - and they should be counted as saturated fats for health purposes!

Since oils high in polyunsaturates may reduce your protective HDL levels and produce damaging free radicals when heated, we recommend you avoid them. The most commonly used of these in the United States are corn oil, safflower oil, and soy oil.

We recommend that you be very sparing in your use of the next technique when you are just beginning, if you are trying to break through a sticking point, or if you haven’t yet added exercise and supplements to your fat loss program. However, they can add a lot of flexibility and enjoyment and make your healthful eating style easier to stay on permanently if you are exercising regularly and once you have lost your excess fat - or most of it.

Fortunately, there is evidence that monosaturated oils as found in olive oil, canola oil, and avocados; nuts and seeds such as walnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds; and oils with moderate amounts of omega three polyunsaturates such as are in fish are healthful when eaten in moderation. There is even some evidence they have heart and health protective effects!

And, eating these safer oils and fat-containing foods can help add enough flavor and satisfaction - and prevent the between meal hunger you may get with a nonfat diet - to enable you to enjoy your food; eat a wide variety of foods; and stay easily and permanently on a healthful eating plan.