5 ways to improve your eating habits

Yes, there is so much to do in the morning - getting the kids up and dressed, packing their lunches, and getting yourself ready for work or appointments. While breakfast can seem to be a bit of a hassle, some form of breakfast is the best way to balance your nutritional requirements and to set you up properly for the day.

Common reasons for skipping breakfast are generally lack of time, lack of hunger, or dieting. If you can’t face a solid meal, have a liquid breakfast with a smoothie, or just go for some sliced fruit (you can prepare them the night before if that saves you time in the morning). By mid-morning people who skip breakfast are eating badly - snacking on chocolate bars or anything else (usually of the less healthy nature) they can get their hands on due to hunger cravings.

Some people believe that skipping breakfast helps them lose weight. This is just a myth. Eating breakfast stabilises blood sugar levels which regulate appetite and energy. The best types of food to have for breakfast is a combination of complex carbohydrates and protein such muesli, a porridge made from oats, fruit and nuts, which is high in soluble fibre, and absorbs fat from the digestive tract while also reducing cholesterol levels.

Generally, unlike breakfast eaters who tend to eat fruits, cereals and milk, mid-morning snackers will fall to the temptations of snack bars, greasy muffins and anything else the sandwich bar round the corner can offer.

It is rather interesting and instructive that in the surveys, those who eat breakfast, eat more often, but were on average 30 percent less likely to be overweight, due to the quality of their food intake.

Snacks between meals can wreck an otherwise healthy diet. Bags of salty crisps or some dried fruits and nuts? Both could go in your snack box, but only the dried fruits and nuts will provide you with fibre and nutrients while the crisps are empty calories.

While we all need to indulge in our guilty pleasures, simply substituting crisps and jammy dodgers with a muesli bar and dried fruit and nuts could help you improve your nutritional intake.
 

If you are a chocoholic, try alternating your milk or white chocolate treats with dark chocolate(which should have at least 70 percent cocoa solids/mass). 
 

Not only may dark chocolate have lower calorie content than milk or white chocolate (read the packaging to make sure), medical studies have shown that dark chocolate may lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, increase antioxidants while also preventing diabetes and improving the health of blood vessels.
 

However, this does not mean you can eat as much dark chocolate as you would like or that you can replace dark chocolate with healthier snacks like fruit. It is just a healthier alternative to milk or white chocolate.

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According to the American Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, since 1977, hamburgers have increased by 97 calories, French fries by 68 calories, and Mexican foods by 133 calories. More recently, there has also been evidence of some fast food companies changing the consistency of food so that we eat more of it. Chicken meat is tenderised so it is easier to chew and if we chew food fewer times, our body is tricked into eating more of it.

An American survey found that children’s soft drink consumption had increased from 13 to 19 ounces per year between 1977 and 1996. How do your kids’ consumption of soft drinks and snacks compare to yours when you were their age? It is probably alarmingly higher than yours.

Soft drinks, soda pop or other sugary treats need not be off limits completely. Just decrease the portions and frequency of these high calorie snacks.

A simple way to reverse this trend of escalating portions is to use smaller plates, cups and glasses. We tend to feel compelled to eat everything on our plate so the larger the plate, the larger the portions tend to be and the larger the amount we actually consume.

As food portions at restaurants tend to be much larger than we need, another portion control strategy is to ask for a take-away box before you start eating so that you can put aside an amount sufficient for your meal and then save the excess for lunch the next day.

These small, simple changes can make a big difference in the size of your waistline.

This one is a biggie especially for both adults and children. We forget that fruit juice, cans of soft drinks, yogurt drinks all contain calories and it is such a quick way to consume them. No chewing involved at all. Large groups of Americans (Sorry, don’t mean to pick on the Americans, but most available surveys seem to be done on Americans), consume up to 25 percent of their calories in liquid form.
 

Keep water in the fridge or if you have a water cooler, encourage your kids to use it as often aspossible. If your children complain that water is boring, offer them 100 percent fruit juice (and not a fruit drink or cocktail stuffed full of corn syrup or sugar water) instead of Coke or Pepsi.
 

Likewise, those of us who enjoy a nice cold alcoholic beverage should keep in mind that not all drinks are created equal in terms of calorie content. Generally, the higher the alcohol content in alcohol, the higher the calorie or fat content.

Of course, what you mix with the alcohol also can add to your girth so if you are an avid cocktail drinker, try a Bloody Mary, highball or a Manhattan as they tend to be lower in calories. Those on a diet should avoid sweet liqueurs which are one of the fattiest due to the dairy and sweet components.

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SEE ALSO: Popular and dodgy diets

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As a rule of thumb, the longer the ingredient list, the less healthy and more processed the product. Packaged food with lots of ingredients, colourants, preservatives and additives generally speaking are not going to be healthy and nutritious. Avoid the “E numbers” as much as possible as these are preservatives, additives, chemicals and food colouring to enhance the taste and appearance of food. If you don’t know what it is or if it is not something your grandmother has ever heard of, it is probably not good for you.

Try this simple tip – next time you go to the supermarket try and shop “around the edges”. Think about it, that is where you find most of the natural foods… fresh meat fresh veg, fresh fruit and the bakery. The boxes of processed food tend to be in the middle.

Eating fresh and unprocessed food does take a bit longer to prepare, but if you have some home help maybe they can do some chopping and preparing for you, or maybe if they’re old enough, get the kids to help. Many supermarkets also offer cooked food like roast chicken and salads that can be of great assistance to the busy EW.