If you want to carry your years lightly toward a longer, happier life, rather than allow the years to drag you along through a miserable, ailing, premature old age, you must take time to analyze your current eating habits. Compare them, one by one, with the stay-young dietary habits that make for a stronger, younger-looking, more vigorous you.
The first thing you need to do if you want to stay healthy is make a planned diet part of your eating habits.
The kind and quantity of food you eat are largely a matter of habits formed in early childhood. This often explains why obesity runs in certain families, although the fatties may try to explain away their overweight by blaming it on an "inherited family trait." Usually the tendency toward obesity lies, instead, in a common family habit of indulging in large meals of rich, starchy foods. Similarly, the persons who "don't like" this, that or the other food are merely following some childhood eating habit.
From the age of thirty onward, if you value your health, good looks and ability to live a long and vigorous life, you must change your eating habits.
The high-energy carbohydrate foods that were tolerated during your earlier years now slow you down and build up deposits of fat in dangerous places. After the super-active childhood years, the exhausting teens and the procreative twenties, few of us are called upon to expend the same amount of energy for daily survival as did our more primitive ancestors. Yet many people go on eating a lumberjack's diet while doing work no more strenuous than sitting at a desk for a few hours a day, or performing a few modernized and mechanized household duties.
After the age of thirty, preferably, and most certainly after 40, you must begin taking stock of your eating habits.
This means more protein and vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables. And less - perhaps none at all - high-starch foods such as rich desserts, all-starch items like white rice and macaroni, fattening bonbons, highly sugared and carbonated soft drinks, or overindulgence in alcoholic beverages.
This menu-in-a-nutshell is your first and most important step toward the goal of a longer life and a younger-looking body. From now on you must accustom yourself to topping off a meal with fruits (or the permissible desserts) rather than with the rich pastries, cakes, candies and jellies you have formed a habit of expecting at the end of every meal. One of the best means of keeping your sweet tooth under control is by looking to honey, nature's own confection, and the only sweet food, besides fruits, that contains valuable food elements.
Bad food habits at any time, and especially during the years that subject men and women to the ordeal of their climacteric (change of life), may be the underlying cause of a physical and mental breakup that can devastate any remnants of youthfulness left to them.
It's the age-old dilemma: how to lose weight without feeling deprived? For many of us, food is much more than fuel. Food is social, because we eat with others much of the time, and especially on festive occasions. Food is also comfort ? it can even be entertainment, both in terms of its preparation and its consumption. Finally, food is also about family and culture. We may take pride in preparing family dishes, things that we remember a grandparent making, dishes that we ate as children. Asking people to give up on any of these pleasures is a very difficult thing.
An alcoholic can give up drinking by just never taking a drink again ? it's hard, but at least its simple and clear cut. A person who finds himself addicted to food, and dealing with the accompanying weight problem, does not have the option of just ?giving up? eating, because we all have to eat in order to live. That makes food addiction and weight problems a particularly difficult situation to deal with for some people.
Here's one solution that has worked for many of us ? keep on eating your favorite foods at the appropriate times, but prepare lower fat versions of them. If you have a choice between adding a fat an adding extra flavor with spices or herbs, always choose the flavor over the fat. In this way, you can avoid feeling deprived, you can maintain good nutrition, and you can preserve the social aspects of food and eating that are so important to us all. You can lose weight and lower your cholesterol level at the same time.
It's easier than you think, especially with all the products available nowadays. For example, if you have a penchant for ice cream, there is no need to feel deprived ? just buy ice milk or frozen yogurt, and enjoy. Most of us can't even tell the difference between these foods. The point of ice cream is that it's cold and sweet and creamy, and either of the lower fat substitutes fills this need just as well.
If you're cooking meat, just be sure to buy leaner cuts. That's a great way of cutting fat and cholesterol in your food. Use just a little bit of olive oil for cooking, on a non-stick pan. Chances are, you'll never miss the fat content. You can also substitute 1% milk for 2% or whole ? again, most people can't tell the difference, though skim milk is too thin to be used in many recipes.
If you like omelets or quiche, you can avoid consuming excess fat and cholesterol by using only the egg whites. If that seems wasteful to you, don't worry ? is it possible to buy egg whites in a container, so that you don't have to throw away yolks. There is low fat cheese on the market to add to these dishes, but unlike some low fat products, it tends to be rather flavorless. Don't use these if you don't like them. Instead, buy a high quality, very flavorful cheese ? parmesan or asiago, or blue cheese if you like it ? and just use a tiny bit. If the flavor is strong, a little will go a long way.
That's true as a rule of thumb ? a little flavor goes a long, long way. For example, if you add a lot of salt to the water when cooking pasta, you'll need less sauce and cheese to have it taste good. Instead of putting butter on popcorn, try soy sauce ? it gives it extra flavor, and some moisture, which is important. Many of us, when trying to cut out butter, find unbuttered popcorn too dry to be palatable. Soy sauce eliminates this problem, and some people end up preferring it that way.
None of these measures, taken on its own, is a weigh loss miracle. However, if you use all of them consistently, you will end up losing weight ? almost guaranteed. The important thing is to be consistent. You have to use these measures all the time ? substitute flavor for fat at every meal. Over time, you will benefit from better health and weight loss without feeling deprived, or eliminating the pleasure that you get from your food.
Both Jimmy Cox & Michael Bens are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jimmy Cox has sinced written about articles on various topics from Web Development, Horse Racing and Investments. Who Else Wants To Get And Grow Young? A Revolutionary Diet Plan That Helps You Keep Younger And HealthierClick here for FREE online ebook!