Diet Do's and Dont's
I copied this from MSN website. I thought it was pretty interesting and made lots of sense!
Everybody wants a quick fix, and as we all know, they are pretty hard to come by and usually too good to be true. There is, however, a simple way to fix up your diet that will help you get healthy and lose weight.
All you have to do is add five food items and subtract five others. And you can do it at your own pace, in your own way. You don't have to add and subtract these foods immediately, but the sooner you make these changes the sooner you'll see good results.
If you're already eating some of the "add" items, just add the rest. If one or two of the items is a complete impossibility for you, go to the nearest possible substitute.
If you've already subtracted some of the "remove" items, just subtract the rest. If you've cut back on a given item but haven't done away with all of it, see if you can raise the bar and eliminate even more.
Even a week of diligence on this plan should yield some results.
Five Items to Add:
Fiber. Do this one gradually or you may get some (harmless) gas while your body adjusts to the new higher level. Great sources of fiber: vegetables, fruits and beans.
Raw vegetables. Add these on a daily basis not only for the rich phytonutrient and vitamin and mineral content but for the enzyme content as well. Raw, freshly made vegetable juice definitely counts.
Berries. The reasons berries are beneficial for your health could fill an entire column. Trust me.
Nuts. A serving is a quarter-cup. Pistachios, raw almonds or cashews, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, you name it. They're packed with good fat and protein, but don't overdo it. Consider scattering them on a salad and you can take care of two items (nuts and raw veggies) in one.
Protein at every meal. Make it fish at least twice a week, preferably more. Fried (anything) does not count.
Five Items to Subtract:
Pasta.
Most bread. Unless it is honest-to-God, certified, authenticated whole-grain bread (which is not the brown junk in the supermarket masquerading as health food). Even then, I would prefer you limit it to one to two slices a day, tops.
Commercial cereals. This includes anything in a cute box with the word "crunchy" on it. Read the ingredients. If you find more than five grams of sugar, put it down. Real steel-cut, non-instant oatmeal is not in this category, by the way, so eat up.
Sodas, even diet sodas.
Packaged cookies, cakes, pies, crackers and desserts. I know this is the killer one, but bite the bullet and try it for a week. Don't think of it as a "diet," think of it as an experiment. You want to see what happens if you remove a couple of harmless-sounding compounds like sugar and hydrogenated fat from your diet, just to see? Try it. Maybe nothing will come of it. Maybe you'll lose weight.
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J.Bridget Fisher aka koi-pea
2/9/04 lap 5'11"
298/172
Find me on face book using this email; bridgetgirl@msn.com
"People will argue with you that getting what you want in life isn’t something you can learn, if you’re destined to be one of the worlds winners as opposed to one of its perpetual whiners, its because you have been born with the right talents and temperament and have a big dose of self-esteem, ambition, and good judgment." Kate White
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