- water
- fibre
- no refined sugar (the white sugar we buy at the store!!)
- only "good" fat
- walking 30 minutes a day
Water - I drink a lot, but not only water: tea and coffee, infusions and herbal teas, sugarfree pops every once in a while, skimmed milk. I avoid juices because they're usually high in calories (it's my choice to use my daily amount of calories "eating" calories with food rather than "drinking" calories with drinks, alcohol, juices). I choose food rich of water, like tomatoes, zucchini, lattuce. Water fill your stomach and it's no calories!!!! When cooking, add water: it makes the recipe "light"Fibre - Fibres clean the intestines and slow down the absorption of carbohydrates; I'm pretty sure you heard about people trying to lose weight using laxatives (absolutely WRONG and extremely harmful!!): well, fibres are the good and health way to get rid of what stuck in our gut.
No refined sugar - Refined sugar is the end product of a long industrial transformation that kills and steals all the nutrients and vitamins contained in sugar beet or sugar cane. So sugar is considered hazardous to health because it provides only a caloric intake but is totally devoid of nutrients... It's responsible of a lot of diseases. Some natural, good alternatives to refined sugar are: fructose, honey, xylitol, maltitol, erythritol, sorbitol.
Good (?!) fat - High in calories (1 g = 9Kcal), fats are often disparaged, accused to make people gain weight and to cause cardiovascular problems. Fats are yet essential for the right functioning of the body: we only have to know how many we can introduce in our diet (30-35% according to the dietitians) and which ones are to be chosen. In a nutshell:
-we have to be careful when we eat dairy products, eggs, fatty beef and pork and absolutely we have to avoid snacks, crisps, ready meals ...
-we should instead increase our servings of fatty fish (we are adviced to have it at least once a week) and olive oil or rapeseed oil (about two tablespoons a day for cooking or seasoning).
- About butter, 10 g per day are sufficient, preferably raw, for example, spread on bread or melted on baked vegetables.
Daily activity - Did you know that physical inactivity causes harm to health as the habit of smoking? The data come from a study of the Harvard Medical School published on The Lancet. Researchers estimated that physical inactivity leads to the 6% of cases of coronary heart disease and 7% of type 2 diabetes, 10% of all cases of breast cancer and 10% of colon cancer, in addition to 9% of cases of premature mortality due to the reduction in life expectancy.
150 minutes per week, at least two and a half hours per week of physical activity is the amount recommended to avoid risks related to an excessive sedentary lifestyle, or at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. Pay to go to the gym is not necessary: it is enough having a walk (fast paced) in the neighborhood, ride a bike, prefer stairs to elevator whenever it's possible, do a bit of gardening. See also my post "Everyday activities for your wellness".
