How to improve your health: 3 Things to add to your Daily Diet
Looking to improve your diet for the up and coming sunshine? …If summer ever makes it to Sudbury. Here are 3 simple things you can add into your daily diet that will help brighten your life with or without the sunshine.
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Smoothies: This is a great way to fuel your body without having it work so hard to digest food, and also a way to add more veggies into your diet. Smoothies are great to have as Breakfast, a snack, or refueling after lots of exercise. Here is what you need to know about smoothies:
- To make your smoothie actually improve your health you need to have at least 50% of it contain vegetables. This way you are adding vitamins and minerals without the sugars, and increasing your DVI (daily vegetable intake).
- If you want your smoothie to be a meal replacement you need to make sure to include fats. Here are some examples of fats to use: Hemp oil, Flax oil, Coconut oil, Avocado, Hemp seeds, Chia seeds, or Flax seeds.
- By adding smoothies to your daily diet you are creating the perfect opportunity to add more supplements into your diet. Anything in a powdered form can easily be added to a smoothie, such as: Spirulina, Moringa, Ashwagandha, vit D, vit E, vit C, Zinc, Magnesium, and many others. (please consult with a health practitioner before taking supplements, especially if on medication)
Salads: Adding salads to your diet, especially alongside another meal, will help with your digestion. Any raw vegetable has enzymes that will help to break down food making your stomach work less, it also contains proteins, vitamins, and minerals all needed in a daily diet. Here are some salad tips to keep in mind:
- Make sure your salad bases consist of Spinach, Kale, Arugula, Romaine lettuce, or Swiss chard. Please do not use iceberg lettuce or you might as well just go drink a glass of water instead, yes it is a vegetable but its water content is so high that it leaves less room for vitamins and minerals.
- Try to add as many different vegetables as possible to your salad (eat the rainbow). If you are going to eat a salad you might as jam pack it! Every colour of vegetable has a different vitamin/mineral content so eating as many different colours will help to supply you with all vitamins and minerals.
- Now this one is a MUST. Please, I am begging you; please make your own salad dressings. This is the best way to keep your salad on the healthy side. Most salad dressings off the shelf contain ingredients that are no better than you eating a hot dog instead of a salad. For a good salad dressing always use 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and then add your sea salt and spices to taste.
Water: One very important part of everyone’s diet that most people leave out is water. Water is what makes us function and most people don’t realize that simple health problems can be fixed by water.
- Swap all pop, juice, coffee, and beer (yes I am aware it is water with just barely and hops in it) for water. If you “don’t like the taste” (it’s water it’s not supposed to have a taste btw) then you squeeze some lime or lemon in it or drink herbal tea.
- Everyone’s intake of water is different. An easy way to figure out about how much you may need in a day is to take half of your body weight and drink that amount in ounces. (Ex: 140/2= 70oz a day). If you exercise frequently then you may need more.
- If you suffer from any of these, it may be because you need to increase your intake of water. Headaches, dry skin, cracked lips, constipation, tiredness, muscle cramps, dry eyes, or dry mouth.
Try out these 3 easy things in your day to day life and see if they make a difference! Either by adding them or swapping them out for other things you already include in your diet. These should help to make you feel more energized! Unless you don’t like energy, then disregard everything you just read and stick to the beer and potato chips.
Cassie Tario
Cassie-Lee Tario (C.N.P) is a Holistic Nutritionist and the former owner of The HeartBeet Cafe. She loves to cook, create new recipes and share her health knowledge with everyone. To find out more info about her or how to contact her visit www.cassie-leetario.com
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