Maintaining a healthy lifestyle: Healthy diet
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| Positive changes to your lifestyle can make you healthier and feel better about yourself and your life. To achieve a healthy, balanced diet you need to eat the right balance of food from the different food groups. These include: |
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| Having a healthy diet does not necessarily mean eating just celery, salad and fish! To reduce your chance of illness, the aim is to have a good balance of different foods, which can also help manage your weight. |
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| If you are not eating one of the food groups on a regular basis, you may be denying your body vital nutrients that are needed to assist in staying healthy. |
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If you follow the above tips and combine it with being more active, more often you will notice that your energy levels and general well being will increase.
- Eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day
- Alter your cooking style from frying to grilling and steaming instead of boiling
- Reduce the amount of fat and sugar in your diet
- Eat more starchy foods
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Preparing healthy meals
Reduce the amount of oil and fat that you use in cooking. It all adds up!
Steam vegetables instead of boiling. Steamed vegetables taste much better and also retain many more nutrients.
Always have breakfast. If you have porridge or another cereal based foot with skimmed or semi-skimmed milk you are setting your body up for the day.
Avoiding using too much salt.
Drink plenty of fluids - aim for eight to ten mugfuls or glasses each day. Tea and coffee is a diuretic so try and have a glass of water between each cup.
Health risks
Experts think that about a quarter of all cancer cases are caused by unhealthy diets and obesity. Our diet influences our risk of many cancers, including cancers of the bowel, stomach, mouth, foodpipe and breast (Cancer Research UK, 2004).
Useful links:
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