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Developing Healthy Eating Habits

By Nehemiah Maxwell

A healthy diet will help you look better, feel better and live longer. I am sad to say however that they are so many people who do not have a healthy eating lifestyle. I frequently see this at the checkout line in the supermarket.

Much of the foods people purchase, such as french fries, fried chicken, microwave popcorn, doughnuts, margarine, cookies and pastries contain an artery-clogging fat called Trans fat. This fat can lead to type two diabetes, high cholesterol and other health problems. If you desire to live a long, healthy, vibrant life, you have to take care of your body by giving it the proper nutrition. More on this shortly.

Eating Healthy can be enjoyable!

Some people think of eating healthy as being boring and tasteless. I think that one reason they feel this way is because most of the commercial ads we see promote foods high in calories, fat, or sugar and only a small percentage of food advertising is done for fruits, vegetables, grains and beans. Thus if there was more nutritional education, more and more people would find eating healthy to be pleasurable and tasty.

The Bad News That Put Me On The Path To Healthy Eating Habits!

In 1998 my loving wife finally talked me into going to the doctor to get a check-up. I was not feeling sick but she clearly said that it was a good idea to get a yearly physical examination. Thank God I listened to her.

I have been athletic all my life. I run 18 miles a week. I also do 250 push-ups and sit-ups a week. So when I went to the doctor I was not expecting to hear the bad news he gave me. He told me I had borderline diabetes.

Diabetes can be very dangerous if not treated. It is one of the leading cause of death in the United States. It is a disease of the pancreas that causes the body to stop producing the insulin it needs to regulate blood sugar.

My doctor told me that I did not need to be put on medication, however he suggested I start reading some books on healthy eating. This was the beginning of my path to healthy eating habits that turned my health situation around.

Healthy Eating Has Helped Me And it Will Also Help You! Today I can honestly say that I am in excellent health. I feel great, I sleep great, people tell me that I do not look my age, I maintain a healthy weight, I do not take any type of medication, my blood pressure is normal, my blood sugar is normal, my cholesterol is normal, my immune system is strong, and the list goes on.

It is extremely a blessing to be in good health and I thank God for it. However I do not believe that I am healthy because of chance. I strongly believe that one main reason that I am healthy is because I take personal responsibility for my health. Healthy eating is a great part of this responsibility. I believe God created our phyical bodies with laws that are governed by proper nutrition. If we violate these laws by consistently eating unhealthy foods, we are going to get sick.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

Have you ever heard the old saying "Ignorance Is bliss"? What people mean when they say this is, not knowing something can be more comfortable than knowing it. But if you stop and think about it, what you do not know can sometimes hurt you or even kill you.

I am sure you can think of situations that have caused you unhappiness or disappointment in your life that could have been prevented if only you had known better. I can. So to me a truer statement is Ignorance Is Not Bliss!. This statement certainly holds true when it comes to developing healthy eating habits.

Every day millions of people get out of bed and set about their daily business. They go to work, go to college, play sports, watch TV, take their kids to school, ride the bus, read the newspaper etc.

While they go about their daily routine many of them eat too much foods that lack fiber, too much foods that are processed and too much foods, which contain Trans fat. Many of them do not know that these foods can lead to diet related sickness or disease. No my friend Ignorance Is Not Bliss!! Knowledge is Powerful!

I grew up eating a lot of starchy foods such as white bread, white rice, potatoes and sugary soft drinks. However when I became an adult I read somewhere that studies showed these foods to be linked with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

I learned that it is far healthier to eat whole wheat bread than white bread. Whole wheat is higher in fiber, vitamins B6 and E, magnesium, zinc, folic acid and chromium.

I learned that it is healthier to eat brown rice than white rice. A cup of brown rice has three times as much grams of fiber than white rice. We need from 15 to 25 grams of fiber in our diet each day. I learned that many of the sugar substitutes that are on the market today are actually bad for your health. For instance Saccharin has been associated in causing bladder cancer in lab rats. Can you see how this first step to developing a healthy eating habit is so essential?

In order to be wise in our food selections we need knowledge. To get knowledge we need to be educated.

About the Author

Nehemiah Maxwell was born on September 17, 1963 in London England. He believes that a healthy diet and excercise is the key to good health and has written articles on the subject of healthy eating. http://www.healthy-eating-habit.com