Healthy Eating

Crucial to our health is regular exercise, food and nutrition. Making the correct choices with our food and drink can protect us all from killer diseases like cancer and heart disease. There are many benefits to becoming slim for life.

Unfortunately, the media is confusing and deliberately so. Fitness magazines want to keep on selling year after year offering new ways to a healthy lifestyle, building lean muscle and losing weight.

Small changes made to your diet will make you feel much better about yourself. Not only will you feel great, you will have control over your weight, improve your complexion and you will save money too!! With a little knowledge, cooking for yourself, your family and friends, will be far more enjoyable than any take away food. Healthier, great tasting food does allow for the occasional "poor choice" food. Anything and everything in moderation.

It is important to understand that constantly dieting and putting on weight, dieting and putting on weight is not only pointless, counter productive but also a danger to your health and can put yourself at risk from heart disease. People who tend to have trouble with stop start dieting often binge eat, don't eat enough, do too much exercise, have poor health and become depressed.

Chocolate is not bad for you. It is surprisingly quite nutritious. It does contain fats and sugars so it best to eat small amounts from time to time. Chocolate contains protein, fats, sugars, vitamin E, calcium, iron, caffeine and anti oxidants.

Tips for healthy eating

• Eat a variety of nutritious foods including wholegrain cereals and breads, pasta, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables
• Only eat foods with a low salt content
• Eat foods naturally low in sugar
• Balance food and exercise - 1/2 hour of walking per day is all that is required to keep your weight constant NOT hours at the gym
• Trim excess fat from meat and lower animal fat intake
• Eat less foods with high kilojoules. Eat more foods with low kilojoules
• Make sure you eat plenty of calcium and iron
• Keep alcohol to less than 1 standard drink per day for women and 2 for men
• Eat at the right times
• Don't miss meals
• Eat little and often to keep up your metabolism
• Drink plenty of water
• Vary your eating plans
• Make fresh home cooked food
• Don't over eat and eat less high kilojoule foods
• A little exercise such as walking the dog is great for you and the dog, and burns calories
• Knowledge is the key!

Kids top tips for healthy eating

Babies should be breastfed for their first year. Ideally, breastfeeding will be their only source of food for the first 6 months and then other food introduced slowly from month 7. If using formula milk, you should be careful in overfeeding.

Children must eat breakfast. They will be able to concentrate better at school.

An ideal lunch box for the kids to take to school could consist of

• A sandwich with cheese, meat, salad or peanut butter. Only use processed meat including ham rarely.
• Cheese slices or a yogurt
• Piece of fruit
• Fresh vegetable sticks
• Baked rice crackers
• Water

Limit the amount of sugary foods and drinks. Focus on water other than soft drinks, cordials and fruit juice and only rarely offer potato chips, biscuits, muesli bars, fruit bars and fruit sticks

Children will want to snack especially after school. Offer something not too big such as a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

You should not consider a low fat diet for your child unless directed by your doctor.

Visit Target Healthy Food [http://www.targethealthyfood.com] for advice on food, nutrition and weight loss.

Have a nice day.

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