How to get started in healthy living — part 3A

Improving your diet and increasing healthy activity

Eating a nutritious, balanced diet is perhaps the lynchpin of healthy living. Not only does it keep all your body systems working efficiently, it also provides energy, protects your heart, helps prevent and fight off disease, maintains a healthy body weight, contributes to healthy skin, hair and nails and even influences mood.

Eat more healthy foods 

Most of us eat too much processed and refined food (containing excess sugar, fat and salt) and not enough whole grains, fiber, fruit and vegetables. The average daily intake of fiber in the UK, for example, is 12g per day — significantly less than the 18g target, while a recent Nutrition and Diet Survey found that although fruit and veg consumption has increased, the average is still less than three portions per day.

Take action

• Take a daily pill. According to the Harvard Medical School, most people benefit from a daily multivitamin and mineral complex, particularly if they don’t eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables each day, if they regularly miss meals or rely on highly-processed foods.
• Up your antioxidants. These naturally-occurring compounds fight disease-causing free radicals in the body and are found mainly in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Vitamins A, C and E and the mineral selenium are powerful antioxidants, so foods rich in these micronutrients are a great place to start.  
• Eating more fruit and vegetables is one of the simplest things you can do to enhance your health — and up your antioxidant intake. While ‘five-a-day’ is the well-known recommendation, the ideal is seven to nine portions, according to many experts. Don’t get stuck in the trap of eating the same varieties, day in day out. Make it a rule never to leave the house without having consumed one of your five a day, and always have another one in your bag or car.
• Avoid trans fats. Increasingly, evidence is building to suggest that this type of ‘manufactured’ fat is more harmful even than saturated fat — no safe level has been established. Read food labels and avoid products with the words ‘hydrogenated vegetable oils’ or trans fats on.
• Switch to wholegrain and brown versions of rice, pasta and bread — these are more nutritious, in terms of their vitamin and mineral content, and also contain more fiber than white varieties.
• Eat more fish. There is strong evidence that the 'omega-3 fatty acids' in oily fish helps to protect against heart disease. Eat sardines, salmon, herring, mackerel or fresh tuna once a week, and another type of non-oily fish once a week. 

Maintain a healthy body weight

More than half the adults in the UK are overweight, one in five are obese. If you are overweight, losing weight and making healthier food choices is crucial to better health, as obesity is associated with an alarming number of diseases including diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart problems, some types of cancer, arthritis of the back and legs, gallstones, breathing problems, some complications of pregnancy and depression. One study found that just a 10 per cent weight reduction helped overweight people reduce blood pressure and cholesterol and increase longevity. The two main factors are reducing overall calorie intake and reducing fat intake.

Recent research from the University of North Carolina found that portion sizes have expanded not just in the home but also when we eat out — it’s quite common to be eating a serving that is up to three times larger than a ‘standard’ portion, piling on additional calories. The average British diet contains 41 per cent fat — significantly higher than the recommended maximum percentage of 30 per cent. What’s more, too much of the fat we eat comes from unhealthy saturated and trans fat sources (derived from meat and dairy products, pastry, fried food, refined and pre-packaged products and cakes), which is damaging to heart health.

Take action

• Weigh yourself and check your body mass index. If you are overweight, aim to lose 0.2 to 0.4kg (0.5 to 1lb) per week. Don’t be tempted by quick-fix diets. The best way to keep weight off is to lose it slowly and sensibly.
• Don’t cut out, cut down. Instead of banning cookies from the house, for example, allow yourself one in the morning and one in the evening instead of eating half the packet.
• Learn what portion sizes look like. For example, a serving of cheese should be about the size of a matchbox, a serving of meat the size of the palm of your hand. While what you eat is obviously a very important part of the equation, even very healthy food, like wholegrain bread, oily fish and pasta, when eaten to excess, is fattening.
• Reduce your use of oil or fat in cooking. You can substitute water, tomato juice or white wine — with a dash of soy sauce — for oil in pan frying.
• Go easy with fat-filled condiments and sauces, like mayonnaise, oily salad dressings, rich or creamy sauces and gravy.
• Trim visible fat from meat, and don’t eat the skin of meat or fish. Opt for leaner cuts, such as back bacon rather than streaky, chicken breast rather than leg
• Don’t forgo dairy products, as these are the richest source of calcium, which has an essential role in muscle contraction and in metabolism. It’s also vital in maintaining bone health, as calcium is a component of bone. Go for low fat versions instead.
• ‘Frontload’ your diet, so that you eat most of your calories earlier in the day and eat lightly in the evening. One study found that people who skipped breakfast or lunch and ate most of their calories in their evening meal had lower metabolisms than ‘frontloaders’, while research has also shown the body is more responsive to insulin in the morning, and therefore more capable of handling carbohydrate efficiently compared to in the evening, when the action of cortisol is more likely to cause carbohydrates to be converted and stored as fat.
• http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/how-to-get-started-in-healthy-living-part-3/