How To Achieve A Healthy You
Watching your weight does not mean you have to go on a radical diet. Dieting is not the answer, for children or adults. Making healthier choices by changing certain habits is the key to a healthy foundation.
Behavior modification, physical activity and nutrition are the three components for a successful, healthy lifestyle. If you do not change your behavior, the other two components will not fall into place. You may have temporary success, but your goal is for long term success. Your goal may be to achieve a healthy weight, but ultimately, you want good health. You may be able to lose weight, but that doesn’t mean your health has improved. If you are not making healthy strides in your eating, you may become malnourished, or may make health diseases worse, such as diabetes or heart health.
In order to achieve your long-term goals you must start with short- term goals. Your short-term goals must be realistic and must be something you are willing to work on. Start by making one or two small, simple changes at a time. For example, many people skip meals daily, especially breakfast. One small, simple change that can be made is to start consuming breakfast every day. Working on this short-term goal will help with nutrition and behavior modification.
Make sure to give yourself time to work on each short-term goal. A good time frame is about two weeks. When you have met your short-term goal, keep adding new goals until your long-term goal is met. Remember, the long-term goal can be a few things such as losing a certain amount of weight, reducing the amount of medication you are taking and/or feeling healthy and having enough energy to keep up with your family.
A pound of weight is approximately 3,500 calories. If you deduct 500 calories a day, you can achieve a one pound weight loss a week. Ideally, you want to have a 250 calorie deficit from food and a 250 calorie deficit from physical activity. Working on nutrition and activity, along with behavior modification, will make weight loss or weight maintenance easier to achieve.
To start simple and small, you can start with a one hundred calorie deficit a day. Just think, an extra 100 calories a day, can lead to a ten pound weight gain a year.
Below are some examples on how 100-calories can add up:
- 8 oz. of regular soda
- 5 oz. of whole milk
- 2 tablespoons of jelly
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 3.5 oz of turkey breast meat
- 2 oz. of 95% lean ground beef
- ½ c cooked pasta
- 4 oz. baked potato
- 8 oz. of beer
- 4 oz. of red wine
- 2 cups of cooked broccoli
- 4 cups of tossed salad,
- without dressing
- 1 medium banana
- 2 cups diced watermelon
Remember to choose foods that will aid in keeping you satisfied and will provide you with adequate nutrition. This list above speaks for itself, so remember that healthy eating can be done, but it takes time and some planning.
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This post originally appeared on our January/February 2011 Magazine [11]