How To Improve Your Diet

Most of us do not have the time (or the will power!) to get up in the morning and exercise for about an hour or so. It isn’t easy to wake up when the whole body is screaming “I want sleep! I want sleep!” But then what is to be done about all those rolls of fats and extra tires accumulating around the waist? What about those thunder thighs, the rolls of double chin and all other things that make us look ugly? Don’t they need to go? Not only are they ugly, they are highly unfit and are the greatest causes of most lifestyle ailments that plague us, from obesity to even breast or prostate cancer. The safest bet, in that case is to keep a track of what you eat in a day and to include what is healthy in your diet with what is not healthy. This is what they call improving one’s diet. Many a kilos can be lost and many a lifestyle ailment averted by just throwing out the junk from food (puns intended!) and substituting it with healthy alternatives. Here are some ways in which you can improve your diet.

 

Here are some ways to improve your diet and maintain health:

 

Make It Fruit-Full 

Much has already been said about the goodness of fresh food and saying anything else would only be an exaggeration. Including at least three to four helpings of fruits and fresh vegetables in a day is a must. Most fresh foods are full of antioxidants, which detoxify the body and keep the system clean. More than anything else, they are the easiest thing to carry when it comes to snacking — they can fit into almost any bag and one can carry fruits to their workplace and use it as a snack. Apples, grapes, cut pieces of mango, pomegranate, bananas, oranges — you name it! They just need to be slipped into the bag and you have your snack for the day ready. Eat helpings of fruit salads every other day at night, especially since you do not need too many carbs at night. Leave the carbohydrates for the morning when you are most active.

 

Healthy Fats 

Our choice of cooking oil also makes a difference when it comes to dieting. Many kinds of fats contain less trans fats and are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids like extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil, canola oil, almond butter, peanut oil, soybean oils and most vegetable fats. Include animal fats as they are full of omega 3 fatty acids, which get assimilated into the body as energy rather than turn into fat cells again. You must remember that even foods with high sugar content get turned into fats when they go unused, which only aggravates the whole issue. You can use these healthy oils for cooking, to make salad dressings as well as for sautéing and all the other ways in which you use oils. Most of them taste as good as, if not better than, other unhealthier options like butter and ghee.

 

Must, Must Breakfast 

Never should you forget that the breakfast is the most important meal of the day since you begin your day with it. It is your chief source of energy for almost half the day. And, as we all know how the saying goes “breakfast like a queen, lunch like a princess, dine like a pauper.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that one needs to gorge on Malai Kofta for breakfast! The breakfast should nevertheless be the most nutrient-loaded meal of the day. Include a hearty sandwich, chapatti and vegetable dish, a hardboiled egg or two, a few cut pieces of apple, a whole small carrot, a glass or fresh juice (unsweetened and non-packaged), jasmine, lemon, mint or chamomile tea or, if you’d like something with milk at the beginning of the day, tea or coffee or even a milk based energy drink. The choices are many, when it comes to healthy foodstuffs that do not compromise on taste.