Diabetes Weight Loss: Week by Week. Jill Weisenberger

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What Is Healthful Eating?

      Eating healthfully shouldn’t be complicated. It’s not easy in our fast-paced, fast food society, but a healthful nutrition prescription shouldn’t be difficult to understand or be filled with lists of strict or tricky rules. Unfortunately most diet plans found on the Internet and promoted on TV are complicated, unbalanced, or both. Many have long lists of foods to eat and longer lists of foods that you shouldn’t eat. Some require that you avoid carbohydrates or eat them only at certain hours. Others forbid fats. Some require combining one food group with another. All of this is more complicated than necessary, and it doesn’t usually lead to good nutrition or lasting weight loss. Often individuals who follow a plan like this eventually return to old eating habits and regain all of the lost weight plus more!

      Refer to any of the five meal patterns discussed in Week 1 and the Appendix for descriptions of healthful eating, or simply get started with these guidelines for uncomplicated nutritious eating.

      • Spread your food out over the day. Eat at least three meals daily.

      • Include the foods you love, but be smart about how often you eat them and about portion sizes.

      • Eat more foods derived from plants than from animals—this means more fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and beans than meats and cheese.

      • Choose foods as close to their natural state as possible. Limit highly processed foods.

      • Aim for three or more food groups per meal.

      • Eat a variety of food groups and a variety within each food group.

      • Limit added sugars, solid fats, animal fats, and excess sodium.

      By following these guidelines, you’ll know what to put in your grocery cart and what to prepare for dinner. You’ll come home from the supermarket with wholesome fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, and low-fat dairy. Most of these foods will look as nature provided them rather than like they came from a food processing plant. You don’t have to avoid them completely, but you’ll limit foods like cookies, candy, chips, stick margarine, boxed macaroni and cheese, seasoned rice mixes, instant soups, sodas, processed meats, and more. Take inspiration from the 7-day menus in the Appendix. Don’t feel that you need to follow these menus exactly. They couldn’t possibly meet the preferences and schedules of all readers. Rather, they are here as one more tool to offer you guidance and motivation.

      TIP!

      When planning your meals and snacks, include foods that will keep you from getting hungry again quickly. Most people find satisfaction when they combine protein-rich foods like low-fat Greek yogurt, tofu, eggs, and poultry with fiber-rich foods such as vegetables, whole grains, and fruits.

Plate Method

      Perhaps the simplest meal planning strategy at home is the Plate Method, which guides both your choices and your portions. Start with a 9-inch plate. Draw an imaginary line down the middle, and fill half the plate with non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, and green beans. Divide the other half between a small portion of lean meat, such as chicken, fish, or beef, and a small portion of a starchy food, such as pasta, rice, bread, or starchy vegetables like peas. Add a cup of low-fat milk and a small piece of fruit for dessert and your meal is complete. You can use the same principles for breakfast, though you might omit the vegetables. You could also keep the vegetables by having a breakfast pizza or by topping your egg and toast with jarred salsa. See the Appendix for a Weekly Plate Method Planner.

      For More Information about Healthful Eating:

      ChooseMyPlate.gov: www.choosemyplate.gov

      Create Your Plate: American Diabetes Association: www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/planning-meals/create-your-plate/

      Dietary Guidelines for Americans: www.cnpp.usda.gov/dietaryguidelines.htm

      Your Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure with DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension): National Heart Lung and Blood Institute: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash

      The Vegetarian Resource Group: http://www.vrg.org

      Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: http://www.vegetariannutrition.net

Decipher a Food Label: Portion vs. Serving Size

      Food labels are packed with information to help you control your weight and blood glucose. Unfortunately, many people underestimate the calories, saturated fat, sodium, and carbohydrate they eat, even when they look at food labels. The reason? Too much food is piled on the plate. Portion sizes and serving sizes are not the same СКАЧАТЬ