by Sharon Quercioli
Welcome 2021! The beginning of a new year is one of my favorite times. Everyone is always so hopeful for a new start. While some people refuse to make New Year’s resolutions, I applaud those who do. It is wonderful to see people try to better themselves. I love having goals and make multiple different types each year. I just finished my vision board for 2021.
One of the more common resolutions around this time is to lose weight. A lot of people turn to crash or fad diets to lose that weight. Most of these are based on omission. Specifically, omitting sugars, carbohydrates, and other things for a certain amount of time to lose weight fast. While those techniques technically work, they are not sustainable for most people. When those things are incorporated back into your everyday meals, you may gain the weight back quickly. You might even gain more weight!
In contradiction to that, I would like to suggest choosing a diet that is both healthy and maintainable. Focusing more on healthy habits rather than crash dieting is a great way to lose weight and feel better. While the weight might not drop off fast, they have less of a chance of coming back, if at all!
Let us do a quick overview of some of the things you can do to keep and maintain a healthy diet for 2021.
The Definition of Diet and “Healthy Diet”
Before going over some healthy habits, let’s talk about what a diet actually is. A diet is defined as the kind of food which a person habitually eats. People who are vegetarians have a strict diet of vegetables. People who are on a paleo-diet try to eat whole foods and avoid processed foods. Of course, these diets have more rules and regulations than that.
But, with that in mind, whatever type of food you eat is what your diet consists of. You are already on a diet. The question is, “Is it a healthy diet or not?”
The healthiest diets are clean diets. Diets that are not full of preservatives, sugar, and salt. This does not mean that your food can’t have flavor. Spices are wonderful (and healthy) things you can add to any meal. Growing your favorite herbs is the healthiest, most cost-efficient way to do that. I have always grown my own herbs. I have basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, and mint growing right now and use them all the time.
Whether you decide to go on a popular diet, or try to eat healthy (in other words, keep a healthy diet), you need to sit and think about what kind of relationship you want with food. Do you want to eat to live or live to eat?
Eating to live means that you are eating so you can live a long happy life. While living to eat may mean that you place special significance on eating as a source of pleasure. Sure, eating should be a happy experience since we often eat alongside loved ones, but that should not happen at the cost of our health.
There are other questions you can ask as well. These are questions I like to ask when I am creating a meal plan at the beginning of each week:
- What meals can I make from the vegetables and perishables I have at home? This ensures that I do not waste food and that I make less food waste.
- What meals can I make with my family? This is a way I can spend time with loved ones outside of when we are actually eating meals.
- How does my body feel? Pay attention to when you are bloated, sick, dehydrated, or if you have dry skin or are getting headaches.
- What sorts of fresh vegetables and lean meat are (1) on sale, (2) in season, and (3) have we not had in a while? Eating a variety of different fresh, whole foods is a great way to include a good variety of flavors and nutrients into your diet.
A Healthy Diet and Lifestyle Consists of Three Things
On the journey of living a healthy lifestyle, you will find that most things we need to do will fall under one of three categories. These three categories work together. You will find that if one is out of balance, the other two become off-kilter as well. Even if you eat healthy and do breathing exercises, if you are not staying active, your body won’t be in great shape.
- Eating well
This consists of anything that you put in your body. Eating well means eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and lean meats. Grains are also important. Just make sure to keep portion size in mind and to incorporate whole grains and complex carbohydrates into your diet, rather than overprocessed, simple carbohydrates.
- Staying active
Staying active goes hand-in-hand with eating well, when it comes to maintaining a healthy body. Your muscles are like your brain (because your brain is a muscle!) in that if you do not use it, it withers and is not helpful when you do need it. For example, if you have not practiced math in a while and it takes you longer to recall how to solve that problem? Your muscles go through the same thing. When you haven’t been using your muscles, they start to atrophy, and it takes them a lot of practice, use, and care to get back into shape.
- Lowering your stress level
Mental and physical stress can hurt your body if your body is going through a lot of it at once. Figuring out a healthy coping mechanism for stress is one of the ways you can stay healthy, young, and maintain a healthy body weight. Yup, stress can cause you to gain weight!
Growing Your Own Food
Okay, so growing your own food might not be an option for everyone. However, there are portable solutions that everyone can incorporate in even the smallest homes. Grow lights and a small indoor herb garden, small potted vegetable garden on a deck, and home-build cold frames are great options for the smallest spaces.
Cooking Your Own Meals
At the very minimum, healthy diets work best if you cook most of your meals. It is not feasible for most people to cook all their meals. However, it is feasible for all people to cook some of their meals. It does not have to be elaborate either. Tools like InstantPots, crockpots, and a calendar to help you plan meals are great for helping keep cooking fun and easy.
Other Resources About Healthy Eating
If you want to find some recipes and information about healthy foods, check out our library of articles on Eating Well. You can find that library here: http://owwmedia.com/category/eating-well/.
You can also find some great information about other types of health and wellness topics (like ways to cope with chronic pain, the health benefits of having pets, and anti-aging therapies) in our health and wellness library of articles: http://owwmedia.com/category/health-wellness/.
If you want to start gardening (whether this means growing your own vegetable garden or an indoor garden to clean the air in your home), you can find some wonderful gardening tips in our gardening library: http://owwmedia.com/category/gardening/
If you want some extra information about healthy eating, please check out my book “Eating to Live Well.” Eating to Live Well has easy-to-make healthy recipes, tips for your health, plus some amazing pictures and delicious recipe ideas for soups, salads, beverages, breakfasts, dinners and even desserts…all using healthy ingredients. If you’re interested, please click on this link: http://owwmedia.com/2018/10/eating-to-live-well-easy-and-healthy-tips-and-recipes-that-are-delicious/
