Contributed by: Healthians Team
Introduction
Eating healthy food and maintaining a healthy diet helps in protecting you against several communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like flu, hepatitis A, B, and C, obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart complications, cancer, etc. If you feel exhausted when in school, college, or office, it might be due to your unhealthy eating practices.
To counter this, you should start eating boiled and roasted food instead of fried and grilled because a healthy diet not only improves your physical health but also enhances your mental health.
The Internet today is flooded with information about what is a healthy diet. However, the only problem is that too much information can also make you confused.
This article is a one-stop solution for all your queries regarding the food habits you should implement to make your life healthier. This will be a 3-part series, focusing on eating habits to avoid unhealthy weight gain and improve your overall health.
In Episode 1 of this healthy diet series, you will learn about the small dietary changes you can carry through in your life that will give you lifelong health benefits. Initially, it might be difficult for you to implement these changes and you can feel like giving up, but taking it slowly and gradually can make you win the race.
Eating slow
Rush is the new way of life that can lead you to stressful and unhealthy living. Studies confirm that eating slowly restricts the calorie intake of the food you eat. This happens because it takes around 20 minutes for your brain to record that you are full.
If you eat fast, you can go past the point when you are full, while eating slowly will help you eat in the appropriate amount. It also improves your digestion and most importantly, you enjoy your meal.
Add whole-grain bread to your diet
Replacing traditional refined grain bread (white bread) with whole-grain bread is a small change that has a big impact on your health. Eating refined bread along with other factors can cause health complications like obesity, heart disease, and even type 2 diabetes.
Whereas, consuming whole grain bread will benefit your health because of its dense nutritional values which include fiber, zinc, vitamin B, iron, magnesium, and manganese. Another beneficial point is that it tastes much better than white bread, but make sure to read the label for the expiry date before you purchase.
Greek yogurt
The nutritional values of regular and Greek yogurt are different. Although they are prepared using the same ingredients and help promote your heart health, weight loss, and support digestion, regular yogurt contains fewer calories and more calcium.
Whereas, Greek yogurt is high in protein. While buying Greek yogurt, make sure to pick plain and flavorless packs because flavored greek yogurt contains added sugar that can be harmful to health.
Munch on popcorn instead of chips
Popcorn is a great source of whole grain and the best healthy alternative for those who love to eat snacks now and then. It improves your blood circulation, overall digestion, and may also lower the risk of certain cancers. Whereas, eating chips increases your weight, risk of kidney diseases, sleeplessness, headaches, and dry skin.
Drink black coffee
Black coffee is a very healthy alternative to your regular tea and coffee. It has several health benefits, such as prevention from Alzheimer’s, reducing the risk of cancer & liver complications, and helps to manage diabetes as well as depression.
Increase your protein intake
Consuming more protein can be especially helpful for your overall health especially if you have a protein-rich breakfast. It has several health benefits such as helping in muscle gain, aiding in weight loss, keeping you full by regularising your hunger levels and controlling frequent eating habits, promoting your bone health, boosting metabolism and immunity, controlling blood pressure, helping in quick recovery from injuries and illnesses, slowing down aging, and promoting kidney health.
Drink enough water
Drinking an appropriate amount of water is very important. Studies show that people who consume approximately eight glasses of water every day tend to have fewer health complications than those who don’t.
There are several health benefits of water, such as it carries important nutrients and oxygen to your cells, promotes weight loss, flushes bad bacteria through urine, improves digestion, manages blood pressure, protects organs and tissues, and keeps you hydrated.
Final thoughts
You now know how small dietary changes can help you in making a big difference to your overall health. If you implement these seven changes in your daily routine, you can manage and avoid several health complications on your own.
