Healthy Restaurant Eating

If you and your family love to eat at restaurants, you may think that this lifestyle is not good for a healthy diet. In many cases, you would be correct. However, you can still enjoy restaurants occasionally and maintain your healthy diet. It’s all about making good food choices, which starts with learning about the nutrition you need to stay happy, physically healthy, mentally stable, and active.

When you pick up the menu, start by skipping over the drink section. Although you may be tempted to enjoy a beer or mixed beverage with your dinner, these usually have many empty calories, which is not good for your body. The exception to this rule when it comes to alcohol is wine, especially red wine, which can be fine if you have a single glass and can actually help prevent heart disease for some patients.

Also skip over the appetizer menu, unless it’s to order a side salad. The appetizers at restaurants are usually high-fat foods that are not meant to fill you up and can in fact make you crave even more high fat foods. Examples of these are mozzarella sticks, potato skins, and wings. Instead, simply focus on your main course or, if you must indulge, share a single serving with the entire table of people.

When choosing your main dish, it is of course important that you look at the ingredients of the dish. Anything with cream sauces or high-fat meats should be avoided, and pass up the potatoes or onion rings. Instead order side dishes like vegetables or ask for just the main course when possible.

Remember too that portion is everything. Order off of the lunch menu whenever you can, or ask for a doggie bag right away. Split your meal in half from the start so that you are not tempted to eat the entire thing. These days restaurant portions are usually enough for two or three people.

At the end of your meal, skip over the desert menu, just like you did with the appetizers. Again, you can share a single desert with the entire table if you feel compelled to order something, or split your portion in half. Many fancy desserts at restaurants have more calories than your entire meal, so keep this in mind before you flag down the waitress to put in an order! Of course, on special occasions, it’s alright to cheat a little, but overall healthy eating requires lots of resisting the temptation around you.
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Portion Sizes

A portion control diet is the easiest type of diet to follow because you’re not restricting your eating to any particular type of food, you’re just eating less. Portion control is not a fad, a detox or a quick fix. It is a method of achieving weight loss and creating a healthier lifestyle.

Why do we eat more? Mostly because it’s put right in front of us. Dinner plates are larger, restaurant portions are larger and we have it instilled in our brain that we must finish everything on our plate. Next time you’re in the grocery store or in the kitchen preparing dinner read the labels on your food. All food labels break the contents down into portions. These portions are broken down into individual serving sizes based on what is required to sustain us. By following these guidelines you’ll notice a huge difference in what is recommended and what you have been giving yourself and your family.

Downsize
Start by using a smaller plate and think about what you’re putting on it. 50% of




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Holiday Fun Without Weight Gain

How can you get through the holiday season without gaining a few pounds? Here are a few tips to keep the pounds off but still enjoy the holidays.

It’s very easy to overeat at Christmas because there are a lot of foods that we don’t get to eat very often. Some foods we may only get once a year around this time. It’s hard to pass up the opportunity to eat these tasty foods, so start with a plan.

• Set your limits before you start and stick with them. You could decide to have only one plate of dinner, so you can enjoy dessert. Or maybe you’d rather skip the appetizer so you can have two helpings of turkey. Whatever you decide at the beginning of your meals or even at the beginning of your holidays, try not to stray from the original plan.
• Wine, beer and eggnog mixed drinks contain a lot of unnecessary calories. It’s nice to enjoy a drink with friends and family but best to be smart about things. If you’re out for a meal have a drink before and one with dinner but don’t over do it

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Food Allergies – When Food Fights Back

Understanding the root of allergies and intolerances may help you keep your children healthy and ease the stress involved in preparing meals for others.

Allergies
An allergy is a response from the immune system to certain foreign substances. Common food allergies are to wheat/gluten, meat, dairy, nuts, shell fish and soy products. Food allergies can be severe in people who don’t produce sufficient digestive enzymes. Allergies can be improved by eating enzyme rich foods like raw fruit and vegetables. Overcooking food destroys the enzymes and can make digestion difficult. The lack of enzymes in the body causes a build up of undigested food in the body which leads to bacterial growth and can eventually lead to an allergy. This is why some people may have been fine with foods before but develop an allergy later in life. Allergy testing can be done by either a blood or a skin test, so speak with your doctor if you have any food concerns. In severe cases allergens may cause anaphy


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Can Healthy Also be Fun?

Alternative Sweet Treats

Cut the refined sugar and stick to other sweet goodies like dried fruit and sugar free candy. Although it may be more expensive, organic chocolates and candies have fewer negative health implications than conventional candy and won’t leave your kids feeling like they’re missing out. Dried fruit is great on its own because it’s sweet and chewy like candy of mix it with granola for that extra crunch. Sugar free gum is also a great alternative because it doesn’t contain the sugars cause hyperactivity and chewing it can also prevent tooth decay and cavities. Candy apples have always been a popular Fall treat and can be adapted to be healthier. Instead of the traditional caramel or candy coating, dip the apple in honey instead and cover with crushed nuts or graham cracker bits. Use your imagination and the healthy possibilities are endless.

Throwing in your chips

Savoury snacks are just as popular this time of year. It seems everywhere you turn there is an





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Keep Strong Through Cold and Flu Season

Although a healthy diet and exercise are important all year round, there are a few tricks to follow in the Fall and Winter to keep you and your family healthy.

What to avoid

Diet is the easiest and probably most effective way to keep your immune system strong and similarly an unhealthy diet can make you more prone to catching a cold. Although anything in moderation is acceptable there are a few things that should be cut back or avoided.

• Minimize your caffeine intake. Caffeine causes dehydration and depletes the level of minerals and vitamins in the body.
• Cut out or reduce alcohol consumption. Alcohol has the same effect as caffeine on the body and should be avoided to strengthen the immune system.
• Eat less sugar. A high sugar diet adversely affects your immune system and can drain you of the energy needed to fight a cold. Sugar leaves you more vulnerable to infections because it inhibits the white blood cells ability to fight bacteria.

Food to make you stronger

Now

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Where Have All The Nutrients Gone?

Why do we have such dreaded life-threatening diseases today that were unheard of in earlier times? One of the oldest and authoritative books on life, the Bible, records people living to almost a thousand years-with no illnesses whatsoever. Even from the days of our grandfathers and great grandfathers, we hear stories of amazing physical feats of health and longevity. People from “those days” live incredibly simple but very happy lives, the kind that many of us today would like to go back to. What happened to all these?

Consider the following reasons and know what caused them:

1. SOIL DEPLETION

Let us start from the very beginning. It all begins from food existing as a seed until it grows and bears fruit. The onslaught of soil depletion and erosion reduces the nutrients that plants get from the soil. Plant crops can only be as nutritious as the soil is rich in nutrients. Bad soil cannot equate to good crops. Over the years, especially when global commercialism intensified, the

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