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What are Active Lifestyle Choices?
What are Active Lifestyle Choices? Lifestyle choices are conscious behavior choices that affect overall health and wellbeing. Healthy lifestyle choices, such as increasing activity lead to improved health and wellbeing. Unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking, leads to a decrease in health and wellbeing. Active lifestyle choices mean creating opportunities for yourself to include more…
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How Does Sugar Affect My Health?
How Does Added Sugar Affect My Health? Added sugars provide no nutrition, and are therefore referred to as “empty calories”. A good rule of thumb is to avoid products that have a lot of added sugar. What food items contain added sugars? Major sources of added sugars are: regular soft drinks, all kinds of desserts…
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Unhealthy Fats
Fats to Limit Saturated fats and trans fats should be limited in your diet. Aim for less than 10% saturated fats in your caloric intake for the day. What are saturated fats? Saturated fats are more likely to be solid at room temperature. Examples include lard, butter, ghee, full fat dairy, and marbled meats. Saturated…
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Healthy Fats
Healthy Fats Your body needs some fat for energy, absorption of vitamins, and to protect your heart and brain health and to support immune function. Fats add flavor to foods and come in many forms. All fats are calorie dense. For example, a single tablespoon of oil has about 135 calories. Which foods contain fats?…
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Dairy and Your Health
Dairy and Your Health Milk naturally contains all the three macronutrients: carbohydrate, protein and fat. It’s also rich in calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamin D. How do dairy products affect my blood glucose? Milk and yogurt both contain carbohydrates, which has an effect on your blood glucose levels. Cheese is made from fat and protein…
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Grains, Starchy Vegetables, and Your Health
Grains, Starchy vegetables and your health Grains and starchy vegetables are an important part of a healthy, balanced diet when chosen correctly and consumed in reasonable portions. Many of them are also excellent sources of fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients (health beneficial substances). What are starchy food items? Starches occur naturally in a large range…
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How Carbohydrates Affect Your Health?
How do carbohydrates affect your health? Carbohydrates are the body’s most important energy source. They can be divided into three main types based on their chemical structure: sugar, starch, and fiber. Sugars and starches get broken down for energy usage and storage in our cells, tissues, and organs. Fiber passes through the body mostly undigested,…
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How Does Protein Affect Your Health?
How does protein affect your health? Protein foods provide amino-acid building blocks. These are the materials the body uses to build and repair cells and tissues. Where are protein foods found? Meat, poultry, seafood, legumes, eggs, milk, cheese, processed soy products, nuts, and seeds are part of the protein food group. Legumes like beans, peas,…
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A Balanced Plate
A Balanced Plate A helpful meal planning tool is called “Create Your Plate.” This is an easy way to control portion sizes and limit starchy foods. Follow these seven steps to create your plate: Using your dinner plate, put a line in the middle of the plate. Then on one side, cut it again so…
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Portions Sizes and Measuring Food
Portion Sizes and Measuring Food It’s no secret that portion sizes have increased over the years. Have you ever found yourself thinking “I can’t believe I ate that whole thing”? Because of the large increase in portion sizes, our ideas of what is appropriate has changed, and larger portions are now viewed as the right…