52 Healthy Habits

1. Think 9 per day - 5 servings of vegetables and 4 servings of fruit
2. Think is 3s - 3 servings of fruit/veggies breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Make snacks count - add one fruit/veggies to each meal and one to each snack mid-morning, mid-day, mid eve.
4. Take Juice Plus+
5. Measure your food into serving sizes before putting on your plate.
6. Read food labels - check for serving size
7. Avoid cereal for kids - more sugar, less fiber and more salt than adult cereal
8. Look for cereal more than 3 gms of fiber, less than 6 grams of sugar, less than 120 mg of salt
9. Read food labels - check for salt - current recommendation 2 grams
10. Avoid Trans Fats (hydrogenated oils) - recommendation "0"
11. Be skeptical of "Qualified Health Claims" - not based in scientific research
12. Eat more omega 3 fats
13. Eat less foods with cholesterol - all foods made from animals and Hawaiian oils
14. Read food labels - look for hidden sugars - current recommendation 125gms/day
15. Sweeten with honey, maple syrup, molasses, agave nectar, stevia
16. Avoid foods sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup
17. Avoid sulfates - used as a preservative
18. Food label - the shorter the ingredient list the healthier the food
19. The easier the food is to prepare the less healthy it is ie. freezer ect.
20. Be weary of "Smart Choices" program used on front of packaging - science is not objective.
21. Take Vitamin D3 - buy organic
22. Avoid poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCB's) in your food - health risk: cancer
23. Reduce your food intake by 100 calories per day and lose 1 lb. per month (3500 cal = 1 lb of body weight)
24. Drink enough water cal body weight divided in 1/2 = ounces.
    
25. When exercising drink 2 cup of water for every 20 minutes of exercise
26. Eat one vegetarian meal per week
27. Eat at home
28. Limit eating at restaurants to 2 times per week or less.
29. Have ready to eat healthy snacks in and out of the refrigerator
30. Travel with healthy snacks and water in your car - just in case
31. Schedule meeting over a beverage - not food
32. Take omega 3 supplement - organic and mercury free
33. Investigate supplements before you take them www.consumerlab.com
34. Add soy it is heart healthy and cancer protective
35. If you drink bottled water, buy a water filter
36. Avoid MSG
37. If you use artificial sweeteners ...stop.
38. Reduce beef, milk, cheese in your diet ... health risk: linked to cancer
39. Reduce sugar ... health risk: linked to cancer

Healthy Habit # 8 Junk In - Junk Out

Junk in? Eating "junk foods" has a predictable bad effect on your health.

Junk out! You may experience mood swings, low energy, decreased enthusiasm, weight gain and constipation problems. A diet largely of junk food increases your risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

What is a Junk Food?

Any food that has poor nutritional value is considered unhealthy and may be called a junk food. A food that is high in fat, sodium, and/or sugar is known as a junk food. Junk food is easy to carry, purchase and consume. Generally, a junk food is given a very attractive appearance by adding food additives and colors to enhance flavor, texture, appearance, and increasing long self life.

Remember, junk foods are empty calories. An empty calorie lacks in micro-nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, or amino acids, and fiber but has high energy (calories). This energy fuels your body and is utilized to maintain health.

Healthy Habit # 7 Don't Drink Diet Drinks

It’s not the soda that's bad for you so much as the negative effects of the artificial sweeteners it contains.

For starters, because of your body chemistry, drinking the artificial sweeteners may actually cause you to gain weight – perhaps even more so than having regular old sugar.

In addition to its potential to actually bring about weight gain, studies have linked artificial sweeteners to other ill health effects. Aspartme, which Nutrasweet and Equal are made of, for example, contains toxic methanol. The sweetener was also once listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent, and has been linked to leukemia and lymphoma.

The sugar in soda is high fructose corn syrup which is 100 times sweeter than regular old sugar (sucrose). So your body uses 100 times the insulin. Some experts think soda is the #1 cause of the epidemic of diabetes.

Source Link: http://www.sustainlane.com/reviews/q-is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/ICZCTZCODAWQ9HTVA4KX93FCRTOI

Healthy Habit # 6 Prevent Diabetes? Stop Sipping Soda

Researchers link soft drinks, sugar drinks to diabetes

Drinking a sugar drink a day led to weight gain in medical school study of 90,000 women

1. One or more sugary drinks a day had an 83 percent greater chance of developing
type 2 diabetes.

2. Weight gain was highest among women who increased their soda consumption from one or fewer drinks a week to one or more a day.

3. An average 12-ounce can of soda contains 150 calories from 10 teaspoons of sugar.

You wouldn't eat candy all day, why would you drink soft drinks, energy drinks, gourmet coffee's or juice?

Study: Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School conducted the study, which is based on the decadelong Nurses Health Study II.

Read more: San Francisco Chronicle August 26, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/26/MNG088EJSU1.DTL#ixzz0Od1ivYQe

Healthy Habit # 5 Depressed? Avoid fat, sugar, caffeine, processed foods.

Depression is sometimes related to the foods we eat.

Have you ever noticed after eating turkey (triptophan) you feel sleepy or when eating potatoes (serotonin) you feel better? Everything you eat is either good for your or bad for you. There is no middle of the road when it comes maintaining a healthy body.

So the next time you are feeling depressed you might want to consider avoiding these foods:

1. high fat
2. sugar
3. caffeine
4. processed foods
   

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Healthy Habit # 4 Add Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids to Your Diet

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends a serving of fish two times per week.

Besides being a good source of protein and a food relatively low in the bad type of dietary fat called saturated fat, fish has omega-3 fatty acids -- which have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Fatty fish such as mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, and salmon, are rich in two kinds of omega-3 fatty acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

Foods such as tofu, soybeans, canola, walnuts, flaxseed, and their oils contain alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which convert to omega-3 in the body. Even though the benefits of ALA are controversial, the AHA still recommends foods containing it as part of a healthy diet.

In addition to their heart-health benefits, there is some evidence that omega-3 fatty acids may also soothe an overactive immune system, says Johnson. Even though this benefit is still being studied, she says there appears to be a link between getting more omega-3s in your diet and reducing allergies, asthma, eczema, and autoimmune disorders.

Source: www.webmd.com