12 Eating Habits You Need To Change For Better Health

These changes in your eating habits are not going to disrupt your lifestyle.  Not really.  They are changes you are familiar with, but forgotten with time, or just never thought about them.  They look impossible when approached all at once. But the truth is you can change your life by taking small steps every day. In fact, choosing three smart but realistic, even enjoyable, daily behaviors each week can deliver big benefits over the long run. Here  are some simple suggestions to help you turn your diet into more nutritious fare.

1. Popular Healthy Nibbles

• Home Made  Fish Sticks

Fish sticks are the seafood version of hot dogs and popular with kids. Here is a healthier do-it-yourself version: Pick up a mackerel, haddock, or tuna steak and cut it into finger-size portions. Dip the sticks into an egg-white batter and roll them in a bowl of breadcrumbs or flour. Freeze, and then bake when hungry.

• Fresh fruit sorbet

It is nutritious and low in calories, and it has zero fat.  Step 1: Buy pineapple, water melon and mango fruit.  Step 2: Peel, chop up and freeze overnight. Step 3: Place the frozen bag of fruits in hot water for 1 minute. Step 4: Remove from the bag and pour the fruit into a blender and puree. 5. Eat immediately.

• Roast Chicken Breast

How about some spicy low-fat chicken breast? Instead of using chicken wings, use skinless chicken-breast tenders. Cut into strips and marinate them overnight in a mixture of Tabasco, olive oil, garlic powder, and red-wine vinegar. Then roast the ‘strips’ at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes.

• Low Fat Pita Chips

Instead of serving a bowlful of fried chin-chin, potato, or plantain chips on Sunday afternoon, bake up your own tasty, low-fat chips using pita bread. Step 1: Use low-fat pitas. Step 2: Cut pitas into 8 wedges. Step 3: Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet in a 350 degrees F oven for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the tips turn golden brown. Step 4: Serve warm with guacamole, humus, natural yogurt, cottage cheese or salsa. You can also let cool and then seal in a plastic bag for later use.

 2. Ways to Shop Smarter

• Don’t visit the supermarket on empty stomach

Always try to shop on a full stomach. Then your good sense would not ignore bad advice from hungry taste buds.

• Buy Your Bread Wisely

Shopping in the bread aisle, you naturally grab a loaf of something brown thinking it must be higher in fiber than white Ploughman, right? Well, no. That dark colour may be courtesy of molasses or food dyes. Likewise, a loaf with seeds or oatmeal flakes on top is not necessarily high in fiber, either. To be sure you are shopping right, look for the phrase ‘100% whole-wheat’ or ‘whole-grain’.

• Check Your Milk

Low fat milk isn’t the same as fat free. If you want fat free milk, the label should say ‘100% fat free’.  But if you can’t get that, then buy low fat, fill to half glass and top with cold water for your cereal or just a delightful refreshing drink.

3. Two Foods You Need to Eat More

• Steamed the Greens

Green leafy vegetables are densely packed with vitamins and minerals, and also high in fiber.  In fact, a cup of steamed mixed greens delivers almost half the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin A, more than 150 percent of vitamin C, 7 percent of calcium, 13 percent of iron, 8 percent of thiamine, and 5 percent of niacin; a delightful benefit at only 44 calories.

• A Bowl of Berries

Blueberries are one of the most healthful foods you can eat. They beat 39 other fruits and vegetables in the antioxidant power ratings, making them a great hedge against cellular damage that contributes to heart disease and cancer. Make it your goal to eat a bowl of blueberries every week. Can’t find berries locally, go for red grapes.

4. Three Foods You Can Do Without

• Whole Milk

Substitute low milk for whole, and skip butter in your dip or sauce recipes.  It will taste fine and you will save a lot of fat

• Too Much Oil

You can dramatically reduce the amount of oil needed to pan-fry foods simply by keeping a lid on the pot. By catching and returning moisture that would normally escape, the lid removes the need for more oil

• Too Much Cheese

When it comes to cheese, it pays to get handy with a grater. Scrape some Parmesan or other hard cheese on your sandwich or chef's salad, and you will save fat calories over standard sliced fare. Worse if you have to slice yourself, as you will naturally cut it chunkier. But using grated cheese means you will use less. Right? 

5. Two Important Things About Vitamins

• Drink Leftover Milk

Your favorite breakfast cereal may be fortified with a veritable alphabet of vitamins, but that does not mean you are getting all of the nutrients listed on the side of the box. Up to 40% of the vitamins in the cereal quickly dissolve into the milk. To make sure you get the most vitamins from fortified breakfast cereals, drink the milk left in your bowl.

• Soak them in Vinegar

If a vitamin does not break down within 20 to 30 minutes, it will bypass the first part of the small intestine, where most nutrients are absorbed. To see how well your vitamin is being absorbed, drop it in a glass of wine vinegar. If it doesn’t break down in 30 minutes, try another brand.

6. Best Eat Out Strategies

• Avoid the Deep Fried Spring Rolls

When you are at a Chinese restaurant, it’s common to go through a plate of those delicious crispy spring rolls before your main meal. But just two rolls of these fried rolls typically contain 400 calories, of which 46% are from fat (55 grams) ,  and who has ever stopped at just two rolls? Order Peking soup instead with chunky tofu slices and Chinese bean sprouts.

• Order soup as a starter

Eating vegetable and noodle soups before a meal can help you lose weight. The fiber causes food to go through your digestive system faster, and the water helps dissolve the fat. Add a potato to the soup, and you will consume about 20 % fewer calories over the course of the meal. Tomato soup has the same effect. You'll eat less and feel full longer.

• You Can Have that Egg McMuffin

Yepi! Good news, as I love these little delights. Believe it or not, you can eat two Egg McMuffin sandwiches from McDonald's and get fewer calories and less fat than if you had had a bagel with four tablespoons of cream cheese. Two McMuffins yield 580 calories, 24 g fat, and 34 g protein. The bagel delivers 643 calories, 28 g fat, and 20 g protein.

• Go easy on the Soft Cookies

With so many arrays of cookies on our supermarket shelves, this is a good tip. A cookie's crumbling indicates its fat content. Harder cookies like gingersnaps and vanilla wafers have about half the fat of their soft cousins. To be doubly sure, rest your favorite on a napkin. If you see a grease stain, leave it alone.

• Go For the Mineral Water Cocktail

At a party, follow each drink with a glass of mineral water. At least that means you will always have something to sip, apart from alcohol, hence getting half the liquor and calories you otherwise would. No-calorie, sparkling mineral water and lime looks just like a 170-calorie gin and tonic.

7. The 5 Unbeatable Rules of Weight Loss

• Add Colour to Your Diet

Buy the brightest vegetables you see. Vibrant colors usually correspond with more vitamins. This means go easy on iceberg lettuce, celery, and cucumbers and load up on carrots, tomatoes, red peppers, and sweet potatoes. They are higher in vitamins such as A and C. Or go for darker shades of greens. Romaine lettuce, for example, has nearly seven times the vitamin C and twice the calcium of paler iceberg. The same holds true for fruit. Pink grapefruit, for instance, has more than forty times the vitamin A of white grapefruit. Mangoes, pawpaw, watermelons are also good choices.

• Go steady on weight loss

For safe, lasting weight loss, experts advise not to lose more than 1kg per week. The biggest drawback of rapid weight loss is that you’re far more likely to regain the weight. People who shed pounds quickly rely on extreme exercise programs or very-low-calorie diets, which are tough to maintain for more than a few weeks. Rapid weight loss also involves losing fluid, which can be risky if you’re involved in vigorous exercise. Often, those who quickly lose a lot of weight rebound to a higher weight.

• Try to Weight Daily

The biggest health risk for adults is weight gain, so monitor yours daily. When you step on the scale each morning, compare what you are today with yesterday, this week with last week, this month with last month, this year with last year. When you see an increase, immediately go to portion control and increase physical activity. You usually can’t feel a 1kg-2.5kg pound weight gain without a scale.

• Don’t Starve Yourself

Rather than three big meals per day, try to eat five or six smaller ones. The trick, however, is not to eat any more calories than usual but to spread them more evenly throughout the day. This strategy prevents overeating, since you're never ravenously hungry. It also keeps your body from lowering its metabolic rate and conserving fat. Plus, it eliminates those dips in mood and performance you feel around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

• Eat Your Fiber

Fiber is incredibly important when it comes to weight management. There are three reasons for this:   1. Fiber-rich foods generally take longer to chew, meaning you will eat more slowly and probably eat less. 2. They take longer to digest, which means more time will pass before you feel hungry again. 3. Putting fiber in your stomach is like eating a sponge; it soaks up surrounding water, making you feel fuller. Strive for 25 to 35 g fiber every day.

8. Be Fat Smart

• Reduce the Fat on Pizza

Always order your pizza with double tomato sauce and less cheese. Men who eat a lot of tomato products tend to have less prostate cancer, probably because tomatoes are a rich source of lycopene. Reducing the mozzarella by just one-third will save you 20 grams of fat per pie.

• Order the Flat Sliced Fried Plantain

If you love fried plantain, always order the flat sliced fried plantain, and not the diced fries. Because the flat sliced plantains are large-cut, they wouldn’t absorb as much oil as diced plantain fries, which lower the fat count.

• Soften Your Spread

Soften butter or margarine at room temperature or in a microwave. Chances are you’ll spread your bread with one-quarter of the fat and calories than when you put it on cold and hard straight from the fridge.

• Chill Your Cans

Refrigerate canned meats, soups, gravies, and other canned foods containing fat. The fat will rise to the top and collect, so you can scrape it off. Your corned beef is a good example.

• Dilute Your Fruit Juice

Fruit juice is sneaky calories, with a 16-ounce bottle of orange-mango blend containing about 275 calories. Remove half and store it, then refill the bottle with water. You will hardly notice the difference, and you will be cutting half the calories.

• Oil Your Yam or Potatoes

To save calories and fat, put a splash of olive oil on your boiled yam instead of the usual butter or mayonnaise.

9.  Unusual Diet Tricks that Work

• Dip Your Fork First

Whenever you order a salad, ask for the dressing on the side. Here is the tip: Dip your fork in the dressing first, pick a piece of lettuce, and then eat it. Sound dumb? In fact, it works.  It’s one of the smartest habits you can have because it reduces the amount of dressing you would have splashed on your salad.

• Quench Your Thirst with Water

Drink two glasses of water before every meal. This will do two things: keep you hydrated and make you eat less.

• Do Not Eat From Tubs

Never eat foods out of their original containers. How many times have you dipped into a pint of ice cream with the intention of having ‘just a little’, only to find yourself staring at the bottom of the container 20 minutes later? You are less likely to do that if you dish out the food in a measured portion. Or, better still, purchase single servings of packaged snack foods.

10. Five Foods You Don’t Need

• Cinema Popcorn Bad For Your Heart

One of the worst foods you can eat is movie-theater popcorn. It can pack up to 126 g fat, much of it saturated. You wouldn’t do any worse if you smuggled in four meat or chicken pies

• ·         Pass on the Prime Rib Steak

The reason prime rib seems to melt in your mouth is because it is full of tenderising fat that, unfortunately, cannot be trimmed away. Although it looks lean, prime rib is the fattiest type of steak, typically 982 calories and 78 g fat for a broiled 1-pound, king-cut portion. That is equivalent to two double cheeseburgers

• Avoid Salad with Dressing

Because dressing contains so much oil, a simple green salad can end up having 70 to 80% fat. (One tablespoon of oil is 120 calories of pure fat.) And since it is already tossed before it is served, you cannot control the amount of dressing that is applied. Order the house salad with dressing on the side instead.

• Pass on the Muffins for Breakfast

Muffins look healthy outwardly with all the berries and other fruits in it, but they are high in calories. The regular ones, which often seem like they are the size of a cauliflower, can contain 500 calories, of which nearly half are fat. So watch out for those muffins offered in the early mornings for breakfast on the plane. Ask for a plate of fresh fruits instead.

• Stay Away from Transfat

According to a study, you could reduce your heart attack risk in half by cutting out just 4g trans fats each day. You will find them in stick margarine, crackers, cookies, cakes, and many deep-fried foods, especially French fries. Look for the phrase ‘partially hydrogenated vegetable oil’ on the label. The closer to the top of the ingredient list you find it listed the more trans fats the food contains.

11. Tactics for Meat Lovers

• Eat More of the Loins

Meat cuts with "loin" in their names tend to be lower in fat. Three ounces of pork tenderloin, for example, has a measly 5 g fat.

• Talk Turkey

Make your own ground turkey by buying the breast and mince it.  Regular ground turkey bought in supermarket can include fattier dark meat and even skin, which gives it almost as much fat as lean ground beef.

•  Drink Milk after Eating Steak

Here is a way to feel better about indulging in that occasional juicy steak: Wash it down with a tall glass of skim milk. According to research, calcium may reduce the amount of saturated fat your body absorbs. Like fiber, calcium binds with fat molecules and helps flush them out of the intestines.

•  Go for Game  meats

Game meats are dramatically lower in fat and calories than beef, pork, and even chicken. They taste good, too. Roasted game, for instance, has an average of 1.8 g fat, 61 milligrams (mg) of cholesterol, and 130 calories per 3.5-ounce portion. Broiled top loin beef, by comparison, contains 15 g fat, 89 mg cholesterol, and 256 calories.

12. How to increase Nutrients

• Refrigerate and freeze veggies

One of the easiest ways to improve your diet is by stocking your freezer with bags of frozen vegetables. Not only do they provide a variety of nutrients, but also convenient. Throw a handful in soups, stews, stir-fry, and instant rice and noodles dishes. The same goes for frozen fruit. It’s especially good for sprinkling on low-fat yogurt or mixing into smoothies.

•  Buy the Milk in paper cartons

If you buy skim or low-fat milk, choose a paper carton over a plastic jug and you may get more nutrients for your money. A study showed that in 24 hours under fluorescent lights, skim milk in semi clear plastic jugs could lose up to 90% of its vitamin A, which is sensitive to light. Because cardboard blocks light, vitamin A losses are minimal. Fortunately, no matter which container your milk comes in, you will still get a full complement of calcium and vitamin D.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons.