A Practical Guide To Healthy Living

When dining out, instead of the starchy side dish (I’m talking to you, potatoes, rice and pasta!) that comes with your entree, ask for two sides of veggies, or for an extra side-salad. The restaurant might even give you a choice – check out the vegetable sides that come with other entrees and choose from those. Just beware sauces and oils . . . ask for the veg steamed and your sauce on the side.

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Nuts and seeds have plant protein and polyunsaturated fats, but they’re also little calorie bombs, so you have to eat them in moderation. Try what I do – sprinkle a tablespoon on your salad in lieu of croutons. My all-time favorite is a tablespoon of sunflower seeds on my salad. You’ll love the crunch, and the bit of fat in nuts and seeds will help your body metabolize all the good-for-you ingredients in your veggies, too! To boost their flavor, toast them in a dry skillet over low heat, stirring constantly, until they’re lightly browned.

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Trying to become more active? Or just motivated by numbers? Get a pedometer and aim for a 10,000 step per day goal. That’s roughly equivalent to 5 miles. Studies have shown that using a pedometer boosted people’s activity by 27%. Anything counts – park further from the store and walk. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, pace as you talk on the telephone, take laps around the living room while the commercials run. And at the end of the day, take note of how all those little extras add up!

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This is a crowd pleaser. And you can do all the hard stuff ahead of time, so you’re not fussing when your guests are around, drinking and munching and socializing. [Read more →]

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I’ve been emboldened by my successes with raw kale salads. [Read more →]

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Manufacturers can get sneaky. does your cereal have 200 calories per cup? Or per half cup? Does that frozen meal contain one, two or three servings? Look at the serving size BEFORE you check the calories . . . then there’ll be no surprises when you finish what’s in the box!

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If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I don’t love cereal. It’s often nutritionally-void and it doesn’t stick with me at all. But you might like cereal . . . and subbing a whole-grain version for your refined-grain favorite will healthy up your life a little more.

Try Kashi 7 Whole Grain Nuggets instead of Post Grape Nuts; bran flakes instead of corn flakes, or General Mills Total instead of Kellogg’s Product 19. Or why not get crazy and try oatmeal for breakfast? Just a few minutes in the micro and you’ve got a hearty, whole-grain cereal that’s a blank canvas for your favorite, seasonally-appropriate toppings (think summer berries, diced fall apples, pumpkin puree).

And here’s a bonus tip – if you do eat Total or Product 19, you DO NOT need a multi . . . there are loads of vitamins added to these two cereals, and taking a multi on top of them will send you over the RDA for all those.

Don’t even get me started on supplements, now, you hear?

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This sounds like some sort of a throwdown from the Food Network: How many superfoods can you fit in one dish? [Read more →]

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