Fitness and Healthy Eating Guide!

For most Americans healthy eating is not about eating adequately. If anything, it is just the opposite - we eat too much! Healthy eating menu will keep you fit only when you eat the right foods in the right quantity at the right time.

For many people, maintaining a desirable weight and body fat % can only be achieved through an integrated program of nutrition and healthy food chart or balancing energy intake with energy expenditure. If you're overweight, shedding pounds often results in reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and other diseases. Even small weight losses can have significant health benefits

So let's take a look at what serving sizes of food are right for us and what are these 'right quantities'.

• Ensure you are eating at least 3 servings from each of the five food groups.

• Eating food that is high in fiber i.e. grains, fruits and vegetables are good for you. Apart from giving wholesome nutrients, it ensures you are not constipated.

• Combine your food with low-fat milk and low cholesterol cooking oil. Always prefer to use healthy veggies recipes.

• Make dramatic reductions in the quantum of salt and sugar (even sugar substitutes are dangerous because they serve to confuse the body due their 'emptiness'.)

• If you must, then drink in moderation

• Eating all your healthy meals including healthy eating breakfast is essential and have them on time Everytime.

• Eating tiny meals (fruits or nuts or sandwich) every two hours and reducing the portion sizes of your lunch and dinner is ideal.

• Eat and chew slowly concentrating on your food. Savor its flavor and taste.

• Using portion control plates and portion control scooper is smarter than using normal plates (except of course, when you have guests at the dining table). Use portion control plates for all your family members including your kids because portion control plates are about eating the right quantities of all foods.

• Unless you have taken less than the recommended quantum of healthy eating food, don't go for seconds.

• Bake, broil or grill food instead of frying.

• Obtain the bulk of your protein from vegetables rather than meats. And when it comes to meats, select fresh lean meat cuts from your local butcher.

Fitness:

Physical fitness was part of the human evolutionary process. For tens of thousands of years, traveling meant either walking or running from place to place. Humans hunted game for their food. Hunting in turn required tremendous stamina and energy. The level of physical fitness and healthy eating tips meant that our ancestors stayed healthy and strong. Today, we don't even manually sharpen a pencil or move to switch on the lights. Everything is either automatically operated or remotely controlled. And what has been the result of all this automation and finger-tip technology? Our physical body has so degraded due to lack of exercise and fitness that it has resulted in serious health problems. In short, the advancement in science and technology was and is being used for the wrong purposes. This is not to say that we should begin hunting or ditch the car and start running again (though quite frankly, the latter would not be a bad idea). Instead, we need to ensure we have a certain minimum level of physical activity such as:

• Strollers and prams are okay but also let your infant roam around the house - let it use its arms and legs as much as possible

• Make sure your kids get to play outside for no less than one hour each day. Try and join them in their games.

• Plan weekly family outings such as rough terrain biking, swimming in the sea, badminton, baseball, tennis, and so on. Even hula hoops are good.

• If you have a jogging track nearby take your family for a jog thrice a week.

• Make physical activity a part of the family fun activities.

So let's take a look at what foods are right for us and what are these 'right quantities'.?

Click for Food pyramid for kids and Healthy breakfast recipes

Ed Stephens started life as a Scientist and this passion has evolved into a focus on making a difference to people's lives, leveraging proven science based solutions. First with the emphasis on providing a one-stop diabetes solution store for the prevention & management of Type 2 diabetes.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Adolescent Weight Management and Fitness

Are your kids growing up well? Are they healthy and strong or are they just growing vertically (and often horizontally too)? What are your son's or daughter's diet requirements? Are they receiving adequate amount of calories or are you worried they might be gorging on the wrong type of calories i.e. empty calories from sodas or overdoses of calories from junk foods?

As a parent you will probably agree that your child's diet is quite unpredictable. Without proper supervision our kids will probably avoid entire food groups and only consume what they love i.e. carbohydrates and fats. It is a proven fact that weight and nutrition deficiencies, lack of energy, lack of concentration etc. can all be traced to faulty or imbalanced diet. The solution to the problem is pretty simple - we need to take an active interest in our child's diet, healthy food pyramid for kids as well as physical activity. Doing so will not only make adolescent weight management plans and fitness much easier to handle it will also bring about a sense of wellbeing amongst your kids.

Research is usually designed to study weight loss, although adolescent health specialists have long stressed the importance of focusing on all the benefits of weight loss management programs that lead to improved overall health and well being. Methods designed to achieve rapid weight loss through starvation, inappropriate strenuous exercise, and/or drugs can be harmful.

Most of us are painfully aware that obesity is of epidemic proportions in this country. This epidemic has resulted in increased incidences of obesity-related disease. An obese child therefore becomes much more susceptible to diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. Because obesity is 70 percent genetic and 30 percent dependent upon psychosocial and environmental factors, obese parents often tend to accept their children's obesity rather than seek to correct it.

Adopting the correct Weight Loss Strategy

Most of the experts including nutritionists and fitness experts recommend that our obese children be put on a healthy eating diet and are encouraged to exercise and modify the eating habits. Some may even recommend the occasional use of special medication. Unfortunately, all this often proves to be ineffective for most people suffering from obesity. The popular "mantra" is "eat less, eat right and exercise, exercise, exercise".

Unfortunately this would be like telling a depressed person to think "happy" thoughts or a diabetic to control diabetics by eating less sugar and follow healthy eating diet plan. Initially all diets do seem to work - not because it is the right strategy but simply due to the fact that on one hand, calorie intake is reduced and on the other hand, more calories are burned through exercise.

All diets are ineffective in the long run. This is because of physiological reasons unique to humans. Here's what happens; as soon as your child begins to eat less, the decreased calorie intake forces the metabolism to slow down. This is essentially an automatic compensatory response mechanism. Instead, encourage your child to eat the daily requirement of calories from all the food groups. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS. The only foods that need to be removed from the menu are junk and other unhealthy foods.

Along with a correction in the type of food consumed, encourage your child to exercise or a have a high level of physical activity in their daily routine. The results will not be seen overnight but nevertheless, positive results will appear within a month or two. Once your child loses the extra flab, his (or her) self esteem and sense of empowerment will be heightened.

Click for Weight management program and Diabetes and weight management

Ed Stephens started life as a Scientist and this passion has evolved into a focus on making a difference to people's lives, leveraging proven science based solutions. First with the emphasis on providing a one-stop diabetes solution store for the prevention & management of Type 2 diabetes

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.