Sounds pretty dire.
One of the main causes of being overweight is simple overeating. We are hungry, and so we shove lots of food into our stomachs. We are rushed, so we do this quickly and don't pay attention to how much we are eating or when we are full. We also are not reading nutrition labels very well. Walking through my local super Walmart's grocery area is actually really concerning. Everything in boxes and bags. All that poor nutrition, all that waste from packaging, it's out of hand! No wonder we're fat. No wonder the oceans are full of plastic.
I think it's absolutely amazing that we have this problem (I blame society - fast paced, mixed messages about health, mommies telling their kids to clean their plates long after they're full) when Mother Earth provides meals perfectly sized as-is. Think about it. A decent portion is usually about the size of your fist. Most common fruits and vegetables are about this size naturally. Even something like a normal sized carrot would be about fist sized when chomped up.
When I was diagnosed with gallbladder disease, I wanted to avoid surgery as long as possible. I thought I could manage without it. I was wrong. After 2 years, the pain was too much and I had the troublesome organ removed. During this ordeal, I had decided it was absolutely imperative to eat as healthily as possible. Part of having a defective gallbladder is that anything with fat or oil in it causes a problem. That's a quick way, and very motivating way, to learn what "healthy" food really is. It's the stuff that doesn't cause agony! Now that it's removed, I can incorporate oil and fat into my diet again if I choose, but I choose not to when I can avoid it.
Not to say that I don't occasionally indulge in ice cream or a slice of pizza, but I've revamped my eating style and I would recommend these methods to anyone who has trouble with portion control, wants to get to a healthy weight, or wants to make sure they and their families are healthy. Here are the rules I live by.
1. Stop thinking of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Three meals a day doesn't hack it. I eat 5 times most days, and they're fist sized.
2. Don't cook several types of food in one meal (like steak with mashed potatoes, green beans, and bread rolls) - this encourages you to take a full meal-sized portion of each. Ever mashed 1 potato? That's 1 meal! You probably spoon that much out of the pot to go "on the side" of your other foods.
3. I eat when I'm hungry - not when my clock says it's dinner time. A family gathering around the dinner table on a daily basis is a good thing - if you're conversing, not if you're all stuffing yourselves into obesity.
4. Instead of grabbing a hot pocket, grab an apple. You'll be dramatically reducing your sodium, calories and preparation time. This applies to more than hot pockets and apples, by the way. It's all about substitution.
5. You can never eat too many vegetables.
6. Raw is better. Cooking causes nutrient loss.
7. Keep the healthiest food in the front of the fridge, or in clear view. When you get the munchies and go mindlessly rummaging for food, you're likely to grab whatever is easiest. You probably don't feel like climbing through the fridge to get to the leftover brownies. You will be more likely to grab the deliciously explosive cherry tomatoes from the front row.
I chose today to write this because it's Thanksgiving. The glutton's holiday. So many foods, pies, ugh. Even something relatively healthy like a sweet potato gets mashed and cooked until it's nutrients are literally up in smoke, and then it gets covered with marshmallows, a food whose natural ingredients can't even be identified. I literally had to take a spoonful of each food I wanted, and I still ended up with a plate full. My portion was way out of whack, and I only got just a taste of each person's dish. Oh well, it's just one day, I guess. I'm just proud I managed to stay away from my own blueberry pie!
The most important rule: TOMORROW is another day. If today didn't work out, try again tomorrow.
Live Pearly.
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