Decrease the SALT, SUGAR, AND FAT!!!

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for all Americans. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and being obese are three major risk factors for heart disease. Close to 9% of American adults have diabete; 30% have high blood pressure; and about 64% are considered overweight or obese. These simple stats reveal health outcomes that are related to dietary habits and a sedentary lifestyle.  In order to decrease the prevalence of these diseases, we have to make dietary modifications and increase our physical activity. To increase our physical activity, we have to do more than what we have been doing. If you don’t exercise, START. It is as simple as that. Your goal should be AT LEAST 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. No matter if you consider yourself skinny, fat, healthy, or unhealthy, this is the bare minimum that ANYBODY should be doing. As Michelle Obama says, “Let’s Move!”

As for dietary modifications, simple modifications in the areas of sugar, sodium, and fat may do wonders to your health. Here are 6 simple ways to practice behavior modification in these areas:

1.     Limit the kool-aid and sweet tea. Oftentimes, when people make kool-aid and sweet tea, they put cups and cups of sugar in it. Unless it is the sugar free kinds of kool-aid or tea (which is still suspect), put less sugar in it, or choose water instead.

2.     Limit the soft drinks…especially if you are going out to eat where you usually get 3-4 refills. There is a lot of sugar in soft drinks so opt for a sugar-free beverage (suspect) or water instead. If you feel you must have a soft drink, have no more than 8-12 ounces a day (or every couple of days).

3.     Do not immediately put salt on everything you eat, especially if you are out to eat. There is already a nice amount of salt (sodium) in your food, especially if you are out to eat. Do not add to it by immediately dousing your food with salt. Taste the food first. If you feel like it needs a bit more seasoning, a couple of shakes will do.

4.     Use Mrs. Dash when cooking. Many people cook using salt and seasoning salts that have a lot of sodium. Mrs. Dash has seasonings that are salt free. You can find great recipes using Mrs. Dash seasonings at http://www.mrsdash.com/.

5.     Only use a teaspoon of butter to coat your bread. Many use a tablespoon or more. Seeing as though many people eat bread several times a day as they feel they have to have it with every meal, that is a lot of butter. If you must have butter on your bread, use as less as possible as butter contains a lot of fat.

6.     No cheese or mayo on the burger. Or no cheese or mayo on whatever you usually put it on. Cheese and mayo contribute a nice amount of extra fat to your meal, so if you can lessen the fat some way, this would be a good way.

Until next time…

Reference:

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Retrieved March 1, 2012 from http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/.