The persistent allegation about eating healthily is that it means a boring diet filled with tasteless rabbit food, and no fun ever again. This has been the cause of many a broken diet, and will no doubt continue to dissuade people from healthier lifestyles. And the worst thing about it is that it really is not true. Eating healthily and enjoying it depends on looking a little beyond the obvious options. At your local supermarket, it is not that hard to spot the unhealthy options, as they are usually packaged excitingly, with pictures designed to make you think that the food inside the packet will be delicious and enthralling. Meanwhile, the healthy options are packaged as you would expect them to be – plain packets and a sober typeface on the label. But eating healthily is not about just picking out the stuff that is labelled in a boring way. It is about considering what makes a food healthy. Being prepared to be a little more ambitious in the kitchen helps. Many of us don't have much time for cooking, so putting a ready meal in the microwave becomes the easy option. If you cook from natural ingredients you can lose weight and feel better, so making the time to cook is a good idea. You don't need to stand over a hot stove for hours in order to make a healthy meal. You can make a good sandwich with wholemeal bread, tuna and some salad which, if seasoned correctly, can taste better than anything you'll buy at the deli counter. What's more, it will only take a few minutes to do. There is no doubt that a healthier diet is a lot easier to achieve if you are willing and able to cook for yourself. It's not the easiest thing in the world, and a lot of people seem to have been born without the gene that makes them comfortable in the kitchen. Having the perseverance to learn, even if it only gets you to a level where you can make simple dishes, will help you eat more healthily. We've all been in a situation where it seems a lot easier to get on the phone and order a takeaway, or go out to a restaurant. And this is not altogether a bad thing. Sometimes it is nice to have food prepared for you. However, always eating pre-prepared food means that your healthy lifestyle is in someone else's hands, are more often than not forgotten altogether. If you put your mind to it, it is easy to at least boil an egg. And if you boil a few, then they can be mashed up with light mayo and a little seasoning to make a tasty egg salad, with the addition of a bit of chopped onion, tomato and lettuce. If that doesn't grab you, then what about some pasta with a grilled chicken breast? Perhaps both of those ideas sound a little boring and unappealing. It's about finding something that you can cook that doesn't involve sticking something in the microwave and waiting for it to go “Ping!”. There are many options out there, and you don't need to be Gordon Ramsay to cook a meal that you and others will enjoy – it just takes a bit of thought. When it comes to losing weight, there are so many options out there that it is easy to become distracted. There are diets that allow you to eat a whole lot of one thing as long as you steer well clear of something else, and there are exercise regimes that don't involve much actual exercise. There seems to be an industry designed to think up ever more improbable ways of stopping weight gain, but when you come to really consider it, the only sure way to control your weight is to eat healthily. Every human being has a certain calorific need, and if you exceed that without exercising to burn off the excess calories you will find that you gain weight. There are other considerations too, such as how many calories in a food come from fat, but in the main, it's about getting the right balance of calories. You have to eat healthily to lose weight healthily and keep it off, and there is no getting around that fact. Deciding on a diet to follow depends on showing common sense. It would be fantastic if we were able to eat what we wanted, do what we wanted and never gain weight. However, sacrifices are necessary if you want to live a healthy lifestyle and after a while they will become second nature. Eating healthily does not mean eating boring food – but we are conditioned to think that if it is good for you it cannot be fun. Breaking that particular mindset is the first key in a weight loss plan. |
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March 2018
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