Kaiser Permanente

Topic Overview

How do you get started on healthy eating?

healthy eat starts with learning raw ways to eat, such as adding more fresh fruits, vegetables, and solid grains and cutting back on foods that have a lot of fatten, salt, and carbohydrate .
A change to healthier eating besides includes learning about balance, diverseness, and moderation .

• Aim for balance. Most days, eat from each food group—grains, protein foods, vegetables and fruits, and dairy. Listen to your body. Eat when you’re hungry. Stop when you feel satisfied.
• Look for variety. Be adventurous. Choose different foods in each food group. For example, don’t reach for an apple every time you choose a fruit. Eating a variety of foods each day will help you get all the nutrients you need.
• Practice moderation. Don’t have too much or too little of one thing. All foods, if eaten in moderation, can be part of healthy eating. Even sweets can be okay.

Why pay attention to what you eat?

healthy eating will help you get the right symmetry of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. It will help you feel your best and have enough of energy. It can help you handle stress better .
healthy eat is one of the best things you can do to prevent and control many health problems, such as :

• Heart disease.
• High blood pressure.
• Type 2 diabetes.
• Some types of cancer.

Is healthy eating the same as going on a diet?

healthy corrode is not a diet. It means making changes you can live with and enjoy for the rest of your life .
Diets are impermanent. Because you give up so much when you diet, you may be athirst and think about food all the meter. And after you stop dieting, you besides may overeat to make up for what you missed .
Eating a healthy, balance variety show of foods is far more satisfy. And if you match that with more physical action, you are more likely to get to a healthy weight—and stay there—than if you diet .

How do you make healthy eating a habit?

first, think about your reasons for healthier corrode. Do you want to improve your health ? Do you want to feel better ? Are you trying to set an case for your kids ?
adjacent, think about some little changes you can make. Pick ones you can keep doing .

• Don’t try to change everything at once.
• Set an easy goal you can reach, like having a salad and a piece of fruit each day.
• Make a long-term goal too, such as having one vegetarian dinner a week.

Where can you get support?

Having support from others can be a huge avail. The more support you have, the easier it will be to make changes. Ask kin and friends to commit healthy eating with you. Have them help you make meals, and share healthy, delicious recipes and cooking tips .
If you need more avail, talk to your doctor of the church or a register dietician. Look on-line for groups that support healthy consume and contribution achiever stories .

Making Change a Habit

Making any kind of deepen in the room you live your daily life is like being on a way. The path leads to achiever. hera are the first base steps on that path :

1. Have your own reason for healthier eating. Do it because you want to, not because someone else wants you to. You are more likely to have success.
2. Set goals. Include long-term goals as well as short-term goals that you can measure easily.
3. Think about what might get in your way, and prepare for slip-ups.
4. Get support from your family, your doctor, your friends—and from yourself.
5. Keep track of your progress. It can help motivate you to do more and help encourage you when you feel discouraged.

1. Have your own reason for healthier eating.

Your reason for healthy corrode is in truth significant. Do n’t do it good because your spouse, ally, or person else wants you to. What makes you want to change how you eat ?
Do you :

• Want to feel better and have more energy?
• Want to improve your health?
• Want to prevent or treat health problems, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes?
• Have another reason for wanting to do this?

Whatever your reason, you may already know what areas you want to work on. possibly you want to cut back on high-fat snacks or eat more high-fiber foods .
If you are n’t certain where to start, keeping a food diary can help. For a week or two, write down everything you eat. It will help you see which foods you need to eat more of and which foods you ‘re eating besides much of. then compare what you are eating to the food-serving recommendations from the USDA food guide .

2. Set goals you can reach.

Ask yourself if you feel fix to begin taking steps toward big goals. If you ‘re not ready so far, try to pick a date when you will start making modest changes. Any healthy change—no matter how small—is a estimable start .
When you are clear about your reasons for wanting to make a change, it ‘s time to set your goals .

• Long-term goals: These are goals that you want to reach in 6 to 12 months. A long-term goal might be to eat 7 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
• Short-term goals: You may not be ready for 7 servings a day just yet. What are the short-term goals that will help you get there? Your first small goal might be to eat 1 serving of fruit at breakfast each day. As soon as you’ve reached that goal, you can set a new one by adding a serving of fruits or vegetables to your lunch or dinner. Or you could try eating a piece of fruit as a snack every day.
• Updated goals: It will help you stay motivated if you track your progress and update your goals as you move forward.

Tips for setting goals

• Focus on small goals. This will help you reach larger goals over time. With smaller goals, you’ll have success more often, which will help you stay with it.
• Write down your goals. This will help you remember, and you’ll have a clearer idea of what you want to achieve. Make a personal action plan

  Read more: Book Summary: Mind Really Own Business

  where you can record your goals. Hang up your plan where you will see it often. It will remind you of what you’re trying to do.

• Make your goals specific. Specific goals help you measure your progress and adjust your plan. For example, setting a goal to eat 2 servings of vegetables each day is better than a general goal to “eat more vegetables.”
• Focus on one goal at a time. By doing this, you’re less likely to feel overwhelmed and then give up.
• As soon as you reach a goal, set a new one.

One Woman ‘s narrative : “ I did n’t try to wholly redo my hale diet. I focused on things that seemed reasonable at the time. “ — Dawn Read more about how Dawn set goals .

3. Prepare for slip-ups.

It ‘s perfectly convention to try to change a substance abuse, go along fine for a while, and then have a reverse. Lots of people try and try again before they reach their goals .
What are the things that might cause a reverse for you ? If you ‘ve tried to make life style changes before, think about what helped you and what got in your way .
By thinking about these barriers now, you ‘ll be good prepared to deal with them if they happen .

Some ways to deal with barriers to healthy eating

Barriers
Solutions

“It takes a lot of time to prepare vegetables. ”

• I’ll buy packaged salad mixes and precut vegetables that I can prepare quickly.

“Fruits and vegetables are expensive. ”

• I’ll look for fruits and vegetables that are in season so they cost less.
• I’ll buy frozen and canned fruits and vegetables when fresh produce is too expensive.

“ I eat out a lot at restaurants. ”

• I’ll pick a salad or cooked vegetables for the side dish instead of french fries at restaurants.

Use your personal action design to write down your barriers and stand-in plans .


One Man ‘s narrative : “ I know the things that I like to eat, like baked goods, cookies, and farce like that. I know that I ‘m never going to stop liking those. “ — Jeremy Read more about how Jeremy avoids getting discouraged by setbacks .

4. Get support

The more subscribe you have for eating healthy, the easier it is to make the change .
Tips for getting corroborate

• Get a partner. It will motivate you to know that your partner is doing the same thing and may be counting on you to help him or her succeed. That person can also remind you how far you’ve come.
• Get friends and family involved. Don’t be afraid to tell them that their encouragement makes a big difference to you.
• Give yourself positive reinforcement. When you feel like giving up, don’t waste energy feeling bad about yourself. Remember your reason for wanting to change, think about the progress you’ve made, and give yourself a pep talk and a pat on the back.

• Healthy Eating: Getting Support When Changing Your Eating Habits

You can use your personal action plan to organize your support system .


One Woman ‘s report : “ It does help to have partners and buddies that are going through this. “ — Loralie

Read more about how Loralie got the support of her kin and friends .

5. Keep track of your progress.

Keeping racetrack of your progress helps you see how far you ‘ve come. It can help motivate you to do more and help encourage you when you get off lead .

• Use a notebook, journal, or calendar to keep track of the healthy things you do. Look this over when you begin to doubt yourself or feel discouraged.
• Pay attention to how you feel. Can you notice any difference when you are eating better?
• Notice whether your desire for certain foods changes. As you change how you eat, you’ll learn to like new foods. You may lose your taste for some of the foods you ate before.
• If you follow a specific healthy eating plan because of a health problem, look over any lab tests or other health measurements you might have. You may notice improvements.
  • If you have diabetes, blood sugar tests will tell you if healthier eating is helping you manage your diabetes.
  • If you have high cholesterol, a blood test can measure if healthy eating is improving your cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
  • If you have high blood pressure, frequent checks will let you know if it is improving.
• Every time you meet a goal, reward yourself. See a movie, buy a new book, or do something else you love.

References

Citations

1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture (2015). 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans 8th ed. http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/. Accessed January 12, 2016.

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Credits

generator : Healthwise Staff
Medical Review :
Kathleen Romito MD – family Medicine
Rhonda O’Brien MS, RD, CDE – Certified Diabetes Educator