You’ve heard commercials about cereal being a part of a balanced breakfast, but most likely, you’re confused as to what a balanced diet entails.
The FDA suggests that eating a balanced diet means “choosing a wide variety of foods and drinks from all the food groups. It also means eating certain things in moderation, namely saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, refined sugar, salt and alcohol.”
But this can often be hard to decide what is moderate eating and what is straight indulging.
The USDA helped us figure out how much we’re supposed to eat of each food category by delineating what our plate should look like.
They say that at least half of our plate should include fruits and vegetables, with at least half of our grains whole grains. The USDA also recommends switching to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
How Can I Start?
First you need to identify any specific needs you have from your diet. For example, if you have hypertension, you may want to consider the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or the DASH Diet.
This diet is very similar to the normal USDA Food Guide recommendations, except that it focuses on lowering sodium intakes and fat levels a little more.
Do I Need to Keep Counting Calories?
The Food Guide does recommend that we continue to keep track of how many calories we are consuming per day. This is extremely important as just one hundred excess calories a day can add up to ten pounds each year.
Although keeping track of every single calorie sounds extremely laborious, there are ways to make it easier. Rather than eating one high calorie meal and strenuously siphoning the rest of your allotted daily calories throughout the day, focus on nutrient-dense but low calorie foods.
Something is Better Than Nothing
If you find yourself reading this and thinking that you’ll never be able to keep these guidelines perfectly on a daily basis, don’t think that you can’t at least try. So many people give up on diets because they can’t be perfect on them.
However, there is always more benefit in having a few good days a week than having no good days. This is why it is so important to continue to try sticking to a healthy eating and exercising regimen. But sometimes, it can be discouraging to try to eat healthier and exercise more without losing weight.
This is why many people have turned to African Mango. You may ask, “What is African Mango?” African Mango is a large drupe fruit found in Cameroon, Africa that has been found to be able to help you lose weight by suppressing your appetite and speeding your metabolism.
Although this fruit is not exactly available at your local supermarket, it is available in the powerful supplement, IrvingiAppress.
IrvingiAppress works to enhance the natural powers of African Mango so that it can help you reach your weight loss goals and feel the encouragement you need to continue a healthy lifestyle.