First Steps Toward Exploring What Is Meant by Healthy Eating
Your commitment to a healthy lifestyle can mean many things, including regular exercise, managing daily stress and especially eating right. While good nutrition is a cornerstone of your wellbeing, the growing number of popular diets, cleanses and other food trends may leave you asking, “What is meant by healthy eating?”
What Does Healthy Eating Mean?
For that question, the latest research uses modern methods to arrive at an old answer. A diet rich in whole foods, including green, leafy vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, berries and legumes can support an active lifestyle. Your food choices can also help reduce your risk of illness and disease, including heart attack, stroke, obesity and diabetes. A study at the Cleveland Clinic found that cardiac patients on a whole-food, plant-based diet saw a major decrease in risk from subsequent cardiac events. If your health goals include weight loss, improved physical and mental performance or lower risk of disease, then you have some great motivators to begin making changes today.
What Keeps Me Focused on What Is Meant by Healthy Eating?
How you eat may be as important as what you eat. If you make your lunch five minutes before you leave for work, there won’t be time to braise some kale or make a wrap. On days like these, apples, nuts, grapes, carrots or dates are all foods that pack quickly, travel well and are ready to give you a nutrient-dense boost when you need it. When time allows, though, there are many websites with recipes that offer delicious ways to cook with healthy ingredients. Healthy eating becomes a way of life when it complements your lifestyle, accommodates your budget and makes your meal a truly enjoyable experience.
Adding Some Spice to Life
Your own spice drawer can offer options for flavor and health, including ground flaxseed for good gut flora, turmeric with black pepper to reduce inflammation, ginger for the relief of muscular soreness and garlic for improved artery function. Research at the University of Houston showed that nutritional yeast helps to increase white blood cell circulation in athletes after heavy exercise. A little investigating on your part might yield some surprises about the health benefits you may already be getting from your seasonings.
Supplements
When life gets in the way of the menu you planned for the week, supplements can also play an important role in your diet. Safe supplements that meet the Food and Drug Administration’s Current Good Manufacturing Practices guidelines can help keep you on track with your nutrition goals.
What’s Next For Applying What Is Meant by Healthy Eating?
While studies and research can tell you what foods are healthy, only your personal exploration of healthy eating can tell you what meals leave you feeling satisfied, energized and whole. Your first step might be to create a meal plan for the week that includes enticing recipes and foods you would like to try. The plans for the following weeks can be a mixture of some of your favorites with a few new culinary adventures thrown in and can help start healthy habits that last a lifetime. As you help your body experience what is meant by healthy eating, Shop-Om can help you with the tools to put your body into motion.