How
First off, you want to always make sure you have a serving of fruit with your breakfast. Use fruits and vegetables as your morning snack, or try to incorporate them into it. Have a vegetable with your lunch and if you choose a salad for lunch add either kidney beans or chickpeas to it. You can always add frozen vegetables to your meals, such as pastas, soups/stews, casseroles and chicken dinners. Try to choose dried fruits as snacks to take along with you, or maybe a small pack of carrots. If you want a dessert, try to choose something that has fruits and nuts.
When choosing to eat meat, always remove the visible fat from your chicken or red meats. Reduce your portion size of meat and cut back to eating red meat to only once a week. Increase you intake of fish, either baked, steamed, or broiled are the best ways to prepare it. Always try to choose low-fat or fat-free milk, yogurt, cheese, and cottage cheese. Try using canned beans for their convenience. They are readily available and you can choose from black beans, cannellini beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, pinto beans, lima beans, and others. Try adding any type of beans to soups/stews and salads. You can also puree the beans to make sandwich spreads or dips. Try pureeing chickpeas to make your own hummus. Here is a great recipe for you (http://www.inspiredtaste.net/15938/easy-and-smooth-hummus-recipe/). Use nuts for snacks, but be careful not to eat too many and try tossing some nuts and seeds into salads. Add nuts to dishes to increase protein while reducing animal products (chicken with cashews, pasta with peanut sauce). Use ground or chopped nuts instead of bread crumbs for coating (salmon coated with ground walnuts).
Try to always choose a whole grain bread and a high fiber cereal to have every day. Begin to limit any foods that are HIGH in GLYCEMIC INDEX to one a day and decrease your portion size of these foods. Try to make the change to brown rice and whole wheat pastas. ALWAYS eat the skin of fruits and vegetables if possible (don’t go trying to eat the banana peel). Pay attention and slowly begin to decrease the amount of sugar that you add to your foods so that you become more aware of sugar, and you will eventually need less.
What
Make sure to get about 5-6 cups of a combination of fruits of vegetables daily. Try to keep your fruits in the early part of the day, so that the natural sugars and carbohydrates are able to be used and burned. When eating meat, eat only about 3 oz. per serving and only 2 servings a day. These meats you choose should be lean, such as chicken, turkey and fish. Your dairy intake should only be 2-3 servings a day and always use low-fat or fat-free dairy products. When eating beans try to keep them at about ½ a cup a day and nuts at about ¼ cup a day. For the dreaded carbohydrate, always choose those that are unprocessed and high in fiber. You want to take in less than 3 grams per serving and only 3 servings a day.
Why
The fruits, vegetables, unprocessed grains, beans, nuts, meat, and fiber all play a part in our health. This section I will explain how each one plays a part in making and keeping your body healthy so you can feel great. Let’s start with how these things can help influence our cardiovascular health (heart disease). Vegetables and fruits are high in fiber. Fiber helps to reduce our blood cholesterol and decreases our risk of heart disease. Vegetables and fruits are also high in antioxidants which lower C- reactive protein in your blood. This is another way to lower your risk for heart disease. Animal products, such as chicken and dairy are high in saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. These can increase the risk of heart disease, which is why it is recommended to eat them in small portions and not as often a day. Unprocessed whole grains contain more b-vitamins and vitamin E which might protect us against cardiovascular disease. Finally, we have beans, which are high in soluble fiber which is known to also lower blood cholesterol. Nuts, especially walnuts, contain fatty acids which are known to protect against heart disease. (n-3 fatty acids, which is also found in fish).
Second, we will talk about Type 2 Diabetes and how your nutrition can help decrease your risk as well as help with those already living with it. When we eat foods that are absorbed slowly by the body, it can decrease our intake of total food, which then decreases our fasting blood sugar. Vegetables and fruits which are high in fiber helps to control high blood glucose levels by simply slowing the absorption of food. They are also high in antioxidants which are normally low in those with diabetes. Since vegetables and whole fruits are low in calories, they also help maintain or decrease weight (beneficial in diabetes). Animal products (meat), such as chicken and dairy are high in saturated fats which can increase the development of insulin resistance. Leaner choices are lower in saturated fat which can slow the development of insulin resistance. Last on the list we have beans and nuts which have polyunsaturated fats which are known to help lower blood cholesterol in our bodies.
Next, let’s talk about hypertension. Let’s start with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans, which are known to be foods that are high in fiber, LOW in GLYCEMIC INDEX (slowly absorbed) and to contain vitamins and minerals. It has been found that green leafy vegetables are high in calcium which helps lower our blood pressure. By choosing reduced fat dairy products (animal products) we are able to get high calcium as well, without all the unneeded fat. When we choose beans and nuts we help to lower our blood pressure, as they are high in magnesium.
Finally, we will talk about weight management, or weight loss. Since vegetables and fruits are low in calories, it enables us to eat more while giving our bodies the nutrients that it needs to function properly. As we read above, vegetables and fruits are high in fiber which helps you feel full longer, cutting out your caloric intake. Fiber also helps to slow down absorption of foods, so that this is how it keeps you full longer. Foods that are high in simple starch and sugar are absorbed too quickly and will increase the blood sugar in our bodies, but will cause you to be hungry about 2-3 hours later due to the “fast” absorption and metabolism. Foods that are HIGH in GLYCEMIC INDEX (stay away from) are soda, candy, cookies, white bread, rolls, bagels, white rice, pasta, potatoes. By eating smaller and leaner cuts of meat, such as chicken and fish, we intake less fat. Fat tends to have more calories per gram (about 9 calories per 1 gm fat, 4 calories per 1 gm of protein or carbohydrate). It is known that the intake of high amounts of fat is related to weight gain while the intake of low amounts of fat is related to weight loss. Since the majority of our daily fat comes from animal products, it is best that we eat small amounts and less per day. Beans are known to be high in fiber and contain proteins in order to help you feel full, so you are able to eat less. This is why it is recommended to only eat about ½ a cup a day.
Fiber
Fiber is the structural part of the plant foods which are not able to be digested by the human body. The total fiber of a food consists of two types: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber.
Insoluble fiber is found in vegetables, wheat, and cereals. The benefits of insoluble fibers are to help with constipation, to help prevent colon cancer and diverticular disease, and to slow the absorption of glucose in the body. While soluble fiber is found in fruits, oats, barley, and legumes. The benefits of soluble fiber are to help with lowering our cholesterol and to slow the absorption of glucose in the body. It is recommended that we have at least 20-30 grams of total fiber a day, with the majority being from soluble fiber. Here are some charts from the USDA to show you the total amount of fiber in each item. Feel free to use it while making your meal plan.
Grains Serving Size Total Fiber (g) Soluble Fiber (g)
Bran, Wheat, dry ¼ cup 6 Trace
Barley, cooled ½ cup 4 1
Bulgur, cooked ½ cup 4 1
Spaghetti Noodles, whole wheat 1 cup 4 1
Wheat Germ, ready-to-eat ¼ cup 4 1
Cracked Wheat, cooked ½ cup 3 Trace
Multigrain or Granola Bread 1 slice 2 Trace
Rice, Brown, cooked ½ cup 2 Trace
Spaghetti Noodles 1 cup 2 1
Whole Wheat Bread 1 slice 2 Trace
White Bread 1 slice 1 Trace
Legumes and Nuts Serving Size Total Fiber (g) Soluble Fiber (g)
Lentils, cooked ½ cup 8 1
Lima Beans ½ cup 7 3
Beans, baked ½ cup 6 3
Kidney Beans ½ cup 6 3
Navy Beans ½ cup 6 2
Pigeon Peas, cooked ½ cup 6 1
If this information was of interest to you, I hope that you are able to implement it into your daily meals. If you find that you are having a trouble fitting it into a meal plan and would like some help, please feel free to follow me and contact me directly at www.facebook.com/pinkroots where I will help you make up a meal plan to get you started. This is also the page where you can learn about any free fitness groups I have going on, which will incorporate a meal plan as well as an exercise regimen.