Making Better Food Choices: The Cornerstone of a Healthy Diet

The weather this month has been unusually hot in Southern California considering it’s mid-April and I anticipate this summer being extremely warm as well. I don’t know about you, but whether it’s hot and dry or hot and sticky, I don’t like being in tight clothing. I want to feel as cool as possible and wear loose clothing that I can feel most comfortable in.

If the clothes you wear on a regular basis are a bit snugger than they were when you bought them or you just want to feel more comfortable in your clothes especially as we approach the hot summer months, don’t go shopping for a bigger size. Rather, I suggest seeing what you can tweak nutritionally to shed some of those unwanted inches.

If you’ve been following my last two articles, you know that we are focusing on healthy eating for the month of April. Last week, I mentioned my favorite ways to track your progress at home by taking pictures of yourself and using your clothes as a form of measurement.

Today, we’re going to continue down this path and I’m going to share with you a few things you can start doing today to tweak your nutrition so that you can start to make progress toward achieving the body that will allow you to look, feel, and perform at your personal best.

To begin, I’d like you to take me into your kitchen, more specifically, your fridge and pantry because this is where you house the food that you consume everyday. The first thing I would examine if I looked in your fridge and pantry might not be what you think. In fact, it’s actually pretty basic. But, since I’m not actually in your kitchen, take a look yourself and simply see where you have the most food items. Do you basically have more items in your pantry or your fridge? Let me explain.

Have you ever purchased a carton of strawberries from the produce section of your grocery store or even from a strawberry patch you’ve driven by? I love fresh strawberries so much that I would buy them in bulk, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve now learned to buy strawberries in a small portion at a time to make sure I could eat them all before they started to mold. Has this happened to you? I bring my fresh strawberries home, and if I don’t eat them within a few days, I end up having to throw them away. They start molding and they’re no good to eat after that. Bummer, right?

Now, what about those items you have stocked in your pantry? Check the expiration date on those items. Unlike the strawberries, you are liable to find that those items that sit in your pantry have a long shelf life. Why is this? Well, foods that usually come in a bag or a box and are located in the middle of your grocery store are processed foods, meaning they have been broken down so much in factories that what you’re left with is basically very little nutritional value. Not only do they offer you very little nutrition, they are also usually full of preservatives, artificial colors and flavors, and a bunch of words you have to sound out to pronounce. My general rule is to look at the ingredients list. If there are more than five ingredients and you can’t pronounce half of them, put it back on the shelf. It’s not real food and it’s not worth your hard-earned money. Your body works hard for you; reward it with healthy, wholesome, nutritious food.

Back to the strawberries. They’re an entirely different story. The reason they have a very short expiration date, even in the fridge, is because fresh, whole foods are dense with nutrients and that’s just what bacteria are looking to feed off of. They can’t wait to tap into that highly nutritious food. On the other hand, processed foods have such little nutrition that they’re not even good enough for bacteria to eat. So, let me ask you, why consume processed “foods” when they provide such little quality nutrition that even bacteria want to have nothing to do with it?

The take home message today is for you to begin to make better choices because it’s the cornerstone of a healthy diet. Frequently, when purchasing food, take a step back, examine your selections, and make sure you’re feeding your precious body with nutritious food choices. Always, always, always strive for quality and choose to fuel your body with the best because that is what you deserve.

Today, I challenge you to throw away three items either in your pantry OR your fridge that you know shouldn’t be there. These items are not serving you in any way, and you don’t need to keep housing them. Will you commit to that today? If so, your body thanks you.

Next week, I’m going to continue this nutrition conversation with you and introduce one of my “13 V.I.P.’s (Very Important Principles) to Eat By.” Stay tuned!