Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Someone recently asked me about how I stuck to eating so healthy and maintain my weight. She was saying that she has trouble staying with healthy foods. After a while the food gets boring to her. This was someone who did a wellness challenge... as you know I participated in two challenges last year. One thing I learned from the challenge is it's a lifestyle change, not a temporary diet. The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to incorporate the habits from the challenge into your daily routine, even after the challenge ends.

So many people will go back to the foods that got them overweight in the first place. I think one reason that it's hard for some people to keep a healthy diet is that they didn't find food that they liked enough to stick with. If you don't like the food you're eating, eventually you will give up and go back to your old style of eating. It's important to incorporate a large variety of healthy foods and be creative. If you hear of a food that has a lot of health benefits, try it and see if you like it.

It was in the news recently that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently underwent lap band surgery in order to lose weight. While I applaud him for attempting to fix his problem, I do not agree with his method to correct the obesity. I believe the only healthy way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat right and exercise.

I had a comparable build to Governor Christie just a year and a half ago. I needed to lose weight and my doctor advised me to as well. I was fat for way too long and I didn't want to get diabetes. I finally took a stand and changed my food intake. I also increased my exercise by doing a hour on the treadmill most days of the week. The weight came off gradually at an average of 3 pounds a week. Surgery may have given me results at a quicker rate, but I would rather learn the proper ways to live healthy and to adjust gradually to my new weight.

Soda is one of most wasted calories you can have. Americans get far too many calories as it is, but drinking soda only adds unnecessary calories that you don't need.

Think about it, why have a 300 calorie soda when you can have a flavored water and save yourself some calories. Of couse diet soda is better than regular, but still soda is not good for you. Research shows that diet soda drinkers waistline grew 70 percent more than non soda drinkers. If you're trying to lose weight, why risk it by drinking soda?

Did you ever notice with diet or health-related talk, there is often conflicting information out there. One source says don't eat red meat, another source says red meat is fine. One source will say coffee is okay, but then you hear reports that maybe it's not so good. The question of how much protein often has different answers, depending on who you ask.

Dr. Fuhrman said in his book The End of Diabetes, that Americans get too much protein in their diets. Then I read somewhere else that to increase muscle mass, I need the amount of protein in grams equal to my body weight. Another source says men should get 56 grams of protein. What am I supposed to believe?

I got tired of writing separate articles for each superfood individually. I thought I would recap and give you the rest of my list.

Here are the 10 foods you should add to your checklist to eat: