Eating healthily needs to be a lifestyle and a change of thinking. A person can go out to eat and enjoy the company of friends and eat healthy. When ordering a salad, ask for extra veggies to be added and for them to put the dressing on the side. This way you can add a smaller amount of dressing just enough to give it a little flavor. Salads are very nutritional, but the downside is the salad dressing. Loaded with fat. If a meal comes with fries, ask if you could replace the fries with baked or mashed potatoes.
Sometimes when adding more fiber and product to diet, we can sometimes add extra gas into the digestive tract. This can make someone feel miserable, but this shall pass as your body adjusts to the higher fiber diet. Sometimes changing our eating can be overwhelming and seem boring after a while. Don’t be afraid to experiment with healthy ingredients and come up with your own recipes.
Remember you are eating healthily to help your body and mind function properly. Don’t get caught up with the scale and think all your work is doing nothing. Our bodies go through times when we retain water. We retain water because we are not drinking enough water. One of the ways a body protects itself when feeling a famine, it will hoard. So, if not eating properly, your body feels like it’s experiencing famine because of lack of nutrition. Your body will start storing fat. Fat is a double-edged sword. Being overweight can cause serious health issues but if your body doesn’t turn the bad waste into fat, you will get sick. Fat helps keep toxins from your vital organs. Your body can also retain water if you have too much salt in your diet.
Also, if you are exercising and building muscle, there could be weight gain. Muscle adds weight. If you are exercising for proper health of body, if weight loss does not show because on scale, inches could be shedding off. DON’T base your success on the scale. If weight is staying the same or going up. You need to re-evaluate what you are eating, and then the type of exercise you may or may not be doing. Don’t get discouraged. Personally, the scale should be thrown away.
Here are some healthy meal ideas and recipes.
I usually buy a big bag of corn tortillas. I make my own home-made chips. I usually take a tortilla, lightly brush olive oil on it so the salt with stick. I mean about a drop and spread it around. I will do this with 10-15 tortillas. I stack them after they are lightly oiled and salted. Cut them into 4 or 6 parts. Bake on a cookie sheet or pizza pan. I use my pizza pan with holes in it. You don’t have to flip them over. Cook at 350 for about 13- 20 minutes. Take out and put in place to cool. These can burn easily. So, make sure you watch them toward the end of time. Sometimes I eat a small bowl of them with salsa. Or I will make nacho chips with them. Put the chips at the bottom of a plate. Sprinkle with heated and thinned out refried beans. Cut fresh tomatoes, avocado, onions, cilantro and lettuce. Top with a little grated cheese and eat. I will also put lots of salsa on it too. I don’t use liquid cheese because sometimes it is harder to control the amount of cheese added.
Tostada - I cook the corn tortilla the same as the chips. Used canned refried beans with no fat added. When heating up the beans I usually add seasoning, salsa, taco sauce and onions to give the beans flavor. Put a lot of shredded lettuce, tomato, and avocado on top and sprinkle a little cheese on them. I usually buy fine grated cheese, not the thicker grated because it looks like you have more cheese on your food.
Bean burritos are another meal we eat but we make them healthy by stuffing them with lots of veggies and a little cheese.
Chicken Tacos
This is a meal I make for our family that is healthy and fairly fast. Take a chicken breast with no skin and fat taken off. Cut the chicken meat. In a saucepan sauté onions and chicken in a little bit of olive oil. Cook the meat until it is almost completely cooked. Add mixed frozen veggies and sprinkle on some seasoning, especially garlic salt. While this is cooking. Heat up corn tortillas on another pan that has a few drops of olive oil. Cook until lightly brown. When chicken mixture is done put into corn tortilla. Avocado can be added, a little bit of mozzarella or cheddar cheese. Top with green salsa. It tastes great.
Chili
This is a healthy fast chili for college students. This can be done on a pan on the stove or in a crock pot. If making it in a pan, sauté all the veggies before adding the rest of the ingredients.
½ onion, diced 1 bell pepper, diced 3-4 garlic cloves, mashed, if you don’t have cloves use garlic salt
1 jalapeno, unless you buy ranch or pinto beans with jalapeno added
2 Cans of Ranch Beans 1 Can of Tomato Dices
1 Can of Pinto Beans 1 Can of Tomato Sauce
2 TBSP Chili Powder 1 tsp Cumin ½ tea Salt
If you put it in crockpot, throw all ingredients in to crock pot and simmer on low all day. If in a pan on stove. Sauté veggies in olive oil then add the rest of the ingredients. Heat up chili and simmer on stove for an hour. If you like the chili a little thinner, add a little water.
Smoothie
This makes a refreshing snack. I make this every morning for my husband and me for breakfast. I also make 2 pieces of whole grain wheat toast for my husband with butter spread on it. You need a blender for this though.
In blender: Add about a 1 ½ Cups of 1 % milk. That is what you should be drinking if you are not drinking skim milk. I usually use my home-made soy milk. Don’t buy soy milk in store, too much junk is added to it. So, 1 % milk will do. Put in 1 banana and 3 droppers of stevia, or a few teaspoons of sugar. If the banana is very ripe, sugar may not be needed. Put in about 4-8 spinach leaves. If you don’t have spinach, that’s fine. I like the extra nutrition it adds to the drink. If you are not used to the spinach flavor. Add 1-3 to start off. Blend it. Slowly add frozen fruits. They sale strawberry, blue berry, mixed berries or mixed fruit. I usually make strawberry banana one for my husband and mixed fruit for me. Once it is thick, don’t add any more fruit.
Buy popsicle containers at the store and make them with the smoothie mix. Freeze. They make great snacks.
Stevia: Is a natural, healthy sugar. It can be purchased at a health food store, whole food store or on amazon. It comes in liquid and powder form. I usually use the liquid. It adds sweetness to food but not calories. It is concentrated so don’t use a lot. It may seem expensive but a little goes a long way.
Popcorn is another good snack. We use an air popcorn popper because we can control the amount of butter added. If you buy store-bought microwave popcorn, get plain and add butter or get the lightly buttered one. We lightly spread butter and mix in through it, so the flavor is spread evenly. We sometimes sprinkle ranch dressing powder, Julio’s seasoning or garlic salt to give the popcorn a different flavor.
I also keep pretzels, the small ones in a sandwich bag and may snack on them with some veggies I have taken with me.
Hope you are having some success with changing your diet and eating healthier, being creative and not giving up. You will notice as you change your diet, that your body starts to adjust. Your body will start craving healthy foods. Your taste buds will change and come alive, and as your body starts to clean out, as you stop eating things laden with fat, like French fries, you will discover a whole new world of food.
Keep up the great job.
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