What’s Your Idea of a Healthy Diet?
By Marilyn Zink
I just read an article on Yahoo that stated the four bad habits of poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking and drinking too much can age you by 12 years. That’s a significant number of years. We all know about the smoking, drinking and exercise. It’s the poor diet where people can be a little fuzzy.
What one person thinks is a healthy diet isn’t for another person. If you took people who ate dairy products and red meat regularly (what my husband calls a meatarian), vegetarians, vegans and raw foodists and put them all in a room, you could come up with some pretty interesting conversations.
I’m what you might call a quasi vegetarian. I eat eggs and fish, but no dairy or other meat products. I like a Mediterranean type diet fused with West Coast (got to have salmon, wild of course), Mexican and Asian foods. It’s a combination of fresh fruit and vegetables, healthy grains, lean proteins and good fats. You just have to go easy on the tortilla chips and guacamole when it comes to Mexican food.
What’s even more important is that a healthy diet is low in simple sugars. Why is sugar so bad? Sugar - and that means fructose, glucose, corn syrup, etc. can cause inflammation in the body. An inflammatory condition can lead to disease.
Here’s another reason to avoid sugar. Eating sugar spikes insulin levels and leads to cravings for more sugary foods. So the more sugar you eat, the more you want, the fatter you get. Eat less sugar and more healthy foods like lean proteins and good fats and you stay fuller longer. Eat proteins with every meal and combine fats with carbohydrates so you digest it slower.
So you eat less food because you are satisfied. I have a theory which is actually quite factual that people can lose weight by giving up bread and sugar. That would mean anything made with white flour and all types of sugar products.
I have put that theory to the test this week, because I want to lose some weight for summer. All the weight loss programs I’ve seen have utilized meats and dairy, which I avoid. I have avoided bread and sugar, including fruits (except for grapefruit). I have eaten rice, but always with fats or proteins. And I haven’t been hungry!
I have been using herbs and spices and making up meals in my slow cooker. I will keep adding to this blog with more information on the types of foods a vegetarian like myself can use to lose weight. I also look forward to your comments!
