Eating Smart for A Healthy Life

An area of health and wellness that is often misunderstood and depicted incorrectly is nutrition. You’ll hear reporters and media icons make flashy claims about a single, brand new study and it’s shocking, controversial results. The fact of the matter is, nutrition science is always evolving and expanding. A single study with “significant” results needs to be reviewed extensively before reporters should interpret what it means, but almost always, a reporter and their claims are not quite accurate.

What consumers deserve to know is: there’s no quick way to lose weight or make your body healthy. There’s no superfood that cures problems and sheds 100 pounds in 6 months. There’s no single bad ingredient that is responsible for the many chronic health diseases like obesity and type II diabetes. This is all too farfetched.

A healthy lifestyle is an all-encompassing subject. There are multiple factors that contribute to health, like nutrition and physical health, that interact.

Eating a balanced diet is always the best place to start. There’s no secrets: just eating fruits, vegetables, protein, and whole grains along with appropriate portion sizes of each. But even this is troubling because many revert back to old habits after a few weeks. Like physical health, nutrition takes practice and adherence. When something as complex as a lifestyle change fails, that’s where the quick-fix or new fad diets and solutions reel the “hopeless” in.

Truthfully, you have to start small. Incorporate fruits and vegetables into each meal. Then try 100% wheat bread and cereals after you’re comfortable with that. Once you build your lifestyle to tailor your desires (including taste!) you can make bigger changes, like using ground turkey and chicken as main protein sources. Meal planning and prepping can always help, too.

If you start small and give yourself some forgiveness if you have small setbacks, a well-balanced “diet” becomes your healthy eating habits!