Many things can help you in your quest to eat healthy, but one important phrase will give you the determination to make this lifestyle change effortlessly: You are what you eat. Make those five words your mantra, and healthy eating will follow. It doesn't mean that eating a steak makes you a cow. Rather, it predicts that what you eat affects the health of your body.
Acquiring Knowledge
Step 1
Immerse yourself in the above books. Learn what's "wrong" with the way you currently eat. Know which foods can hurt you, and learn which foods can heal and protect you.
Step 2
Look statistics in the eye. Compare how the Asian and Mediterranean diets differ from the American diet. Note how cancer, heart disease and diabetes occur with less frequency in certain cultures.
Step 3
Realize that your well-meaning parents taught and fed you according to their customs and income. Don't use your cultural background as an excuse to eat the things you now know can hurt you.
Step 4
When tempted to eat an unhealthy food, picture the food hitting your stomach and giving you the disease to which it is linked.
Dietary Changes
Step 1
Make weekly or biweekly changes, one food group at a time. Reduce red meat consumption to once weekly. Eat chicken without the skin and baked or broiled fish.
Step 2
Gradually cut down on fats, sugar and white flour. Shop the perimeter of the supermarket for the healthiest non-processed foods. Switch to whole-grain breads, pasta, cereals and pancakes. Visit a health-food store and get to know what different breads look like.
Step 3
Eat vegetables at lunch and dinner and three to four servings of fruit per day. Make salads interesting by adding different tastes and textures, such as peppers, tomatoes, scallions, beans, olives, nuts and seeds, berries or mandarin oranges.
Step 4
Purchase a colorful healthy foods cookbook. Explore new sources of protein such as edamame, quinoa, lentils, beans, tempeh and tofu. Experiment with new herbs and spices such as cilantro, turmeric, cumin, ginger, curry, thyme, rosemary and spice blends.
Mental Attitude
Step 1
Congratulate yourself every day for taking the road to health. Visualize the disease to which your old eating habits steered you. Change the picture to a healthy, active you enjoying all that life offers.
Step 2
Embrace physical exercise. Being mindful of making healthy food choices comes easier after working out. Surround yourself with like-minded health enthusiasts.
Step 3
Take your social life to another level by having it center around good food and physical activities, rather than bars, beers and burgers.
Tips and Warnings
- Don't dwell on calories and instead cut down portion-sizes. Only eat when you feel hungry and stop eating when the hunger goes away. Eat healthy snacks between meals if you feel hungry. Remember, you are not on a "diet," a word synonymous with "deprivation."
Things You'll Need
- "Anti-cancer: A New Way of Life," by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.
- "Eat This and Live," by Don Colbert, M.D.
- "The Top 100 Immunity Boosters," by Charlotte Haigh
References
- "Anti-cancer, A New Way of Life"; David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.; 2007
- "Eat This and Live"; Don Colbert, M.D.; 2009
- "The Top 100 Immunity Boosters"; Charlotte Haigh; 2005
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