Tips For Healthy Eating Habits
You won’t get healthy by eating all junk food and topping the meal off with a carrot stick. You need to ensure you have nutritious food at every meal and minimize the food that’s not good for you. That requires your eating habits to change. Once something becomes a habit, you don’t have to think about it. You automatically do it. You can change a little at a time, making small changes every few weeks, or jump right in with both feet and change your diet entirely. The key to good health is consistency.
Drink more water and chew food longer.
You’ll be surprised at how much of a difference this makes. When you drink water frequently, you do more than quench your thirst. You boost your energy. Mild dehydration can make you feel tired and mentally confused. If seniors are mildly dehydrated, it can create the same symptoms of dementia. Drinking water before a meal can fill you so you don’t eat as much. That helps with weight loss. It’s far better than soft drinks, even diet soft drinks, that add inches to your waist.
Keep healthy snacks ready to eat.
Snacking doesn’t have to be bad for you. It’s all about the type of snack you eat. If you have vegetables and dip ready in the refrigerator, you’ll probably eat that instead of potato chips. When you bring home watermelon or cantaloupe, peel it and dice it. Keep it in a bowl in the fridge to satisfy your urge for something sweet. Frozen grapes can also be a delightful summer treat. Other healthy snacks include nuts, fresh fruit like apples or oranges, and cheese.
Try meal planning.
Planning meals, including snacks, makes it easier to stick with a healthy diet. You plan the meals one day, shop on another day, and cook everything for the week on your day off work. It saves you money since you use the ingredients in several meals. Bake a chicken for baked chicken one night, a chicken salad another, and chicken soup with leftovers. Chopped veggies can be snacks, used in meals, and if there’s any leftover, used in soup. Pack the week’s meals in individual serving sizes. When you’re ready to eat them, just heat and serve.
- Consider pasta substitutes. Spiralized vegetables such as zoodles or Mother Nature’s noodles from spaghetti squash are good substitutes for pasta. You can slice eggplant or zucchini for lasagna.
- Add extra vegetables to your dishes. If you’re serving rice, toss in some broccoli. Scramble your eggs with spinach and cheese. Mix boiled cauliflower with boiled potatoes for mashed potatoes.
- Switch to whole-grain bread. White flour uses just the starch endosperm off the grain and has few nutrients. Whole grains have the bran, germ, and endosperm. The bran is fiber. The germ contains all the nutrition.
- Use unsweetened applesauce to replace oil or sugar in a recipe. If you’re making a smoothie, sweeten it with a ripe banana. Cut fruit into pieces and freeze it. Put it in the blender to make a sorbet for dessert.
For more information, contact us today at Reggie C. Fitness
It’s hard to match the satisfaction junk foods offer people in Houston, TX. Most diet foods pale by comparison and fail to satisfy cravings. Cravings start in the brain. It’s part of the body’s reward system. Hunger pangs begin in the hypothalamus, located at the base of the brain. The center of the brain contains the reward system. It helps keep people alive and guarantees the continuation of the species. Those systems control eating, sleeping, sex drives, and the fight or flight response. It triggers the release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone. Sugar is one trigger. Your memory of emotional moments also triggers cravings.
You may have heard about your BMI, maybe even from your doctor. What is it? Does it give a good picture of how healthy you are? BMI is an acronym for body mass index. It compares your height to weight to determine whether you’re underweight, average, overweight, or obese. BMI charts exist for men, women, and children. It’s a quick way for doctors to identify changes in your body that might indicate a health issue or point to issues like severe obesity or other weight issues. It’s not the final answer.
The definition of being fit is personal. Each person determines their goal. Ways of staying fit are just as varied. Some people, like the family of warriors at RCFitness, use online services or private and group training to achieve that goal. One way that’s encouraged is to walk more. A movement encouraging walking 10,000 steps each day grew significantly these past few years. Why has it become popular? Is there a reason 10,000 steps are better than 5,000 or 15,000?
Looking great is one of the goals of people in Houston, TX. They want a toned appearance achieved with weight loss and improving muscle tone. It’s not easy to burn fat and build muscle simultaneously. You need to ensure the weight you lose comes only from body fat. If you’re overweight, exercise will help you firm and tone muscles, but you also must eat fewer calories than you burn to lose fat. If you only diet, you may lose fat but still look out of shape. Doing both in the right combination provides the look most people want.
When people workout at RC Fitness in Houston, TX, they expect to work hard and eat healthier to lose weight. That doesn’t mean that weight loss has to be difficult all the time. There are sneaky ways to burn more calories and shed extra weight that you can start using today. Making small changes in your lifestyle, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or parking further from the store and walking, can increase the weight you lose and improve your fitness efforts. Even simpler is drinking a glass of water a half hour before eating. Studies show you’ll eat less and feel fuller faster.
It’s common for people to use OTC painkillers to treat pain, but it’s not always the best way to deal with it, especially if it’s chronic. While they may bring pain relief, using them too frequently can cause even worse health problems, like heart and digestive issues. One alternative to medication, both prescription and OTC, is exercise. Exercise releases natural painkillers and improves circulation. They aid in reducing inflammation, which increases pain. Here are at-home exercises you can use that will help you feel better quickly.
If your pelvic floor muscles aren’t strong enough, you’ll have problems with bladder and bowel continence. The pelvic floor can affect women’s sexual sensation since it supports the uterus. Weakness can even cause back pain. Pelvic floor exercises strengthen the muscles. The stronger those muscles are, the less fear you have that you’ll wet your pants if you sneeze or laugh. That’s especially true for pregnant or older women.
In Houston, TX, clients log their workouts for many reasons. The most obvious reason to log your workouts is to check your progress and find out what’s working and what’s not. It shouldn’t take much time, especially if you only log the exercise and the number of reps. Some people like adding extra information, such as whether doing it was easy or extremely difficult. That gives more clues to the fitness level at which they perform. If the exercise feels easy, increase the number of sets or repetitions you perform to make it harder.
Everyone should have the opportunity to learn how to get fit and the ability to follow the advice. Many people don’t have access to a gym or a personal trainer. It might be too expensive, not close to their home, or not open when they have time. Those are all reasons people have turned to online help and why I provide it. I believe everyone deserves to look and feel their best. If you’re a busy mom, a person whose hours conflict with gym hours, or on a budget but crave feeling good, an online option may be right for you.