(skip to the bottom to just print out your printable food diary [PDF])
How important is what you eat? It may be the single biggest lifestyle choice that’s within your complete control that affects your health and longevity. In recent years, mounting scientific evidence has clearly shown the relationship between diet and cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
It’s also shown the flip side, that when we make good diet choices, like whole grains and vegetables, our health and energy increase. So what’s keeping us from all making the diet choices that are necessary to enjoy life to the fullest?
Food is social (and emotional)
The first thing that comes to mind is my mom’s Sunday roast beef and mashed potatoes dinner. I can’t think of a more comforting meal, and I would guess that you have one too. Food was a social thing long before it was a cause of disease.
In fact, the taste, smell and setting for each meal registers much higher in our minds than the nutrition label, which is why it’s so important to get in the habit of making deliberate health choices. I was reminded of this again while reading in the Runners World magazine today.
Trade off between meat and veggies
They discussed the benefits of eating a variety of foods, mentioning that it wasn’t necessarily healthy to eat only meat or only veggies. Some of the reasons they gave include the fact that meats contain some really beneficial nutrients, like iron, zinc, protein and B vitamins. Fish have omega-3 fatty acids. But these come with the negatives of saturated fat and cholesterol.
So, they suggested that a good balance is where you’ll find the biggest benefits. But beware of changing your diet too quickly. The human body needs time to adjust to new foods. For example, changing your diet to include whole grain and lots of legumes can be a bit of a shock to the body. It’s best to start small, maybe substituting some lentils for some meat in your dinner.
Dramatic changes in health from small changes in diet
Mark Bittman, author of Food Matters, told of how cutting back on meat in his diet lowered his cholesterol, his blood sugar decreased and he lost 35 pounds. That all happened within a few months. He even said that because he felt lighter his knees started to work again.
Even if you gave up one cheeseburger a week, that’s something. And over time you can replace it with more healthy alternatives.
Diet resources
As I was looking into this I found that there was a need for a printable food diary. I created a printable food diary based on the food log inside Maintain Fit (if you haven’t already, go here to sign up for an exercise log). Here is the food diary:
In case you wanted to go a little deeper, here are links to the books I mentioned in this post
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Don’t forget to post a comment and share what works for you or suggest items that you would like to see in the food log or this printable food diary.
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Just wanted to post this link to a healthy recipe site: http://www.cookinglight.com/. It’s always good to start with a healthy plan (especially since I love butter and tend to add more of the flavorful ingredients. Tell me if you like it.