Diet Plan



Diet Plan

Three Important Things I Learned Regarding Nutritional HabitsFollow Nutritional LabelsNutrition labels are on food products for a reason. Before this class I rarely observed them. However, from this class I have learned that food labels are designed to help me make healthy choices for me and my family. Nutritional labels were designed by the Government as guidelines were so people can make choices on what they eat not to mention for informational purposes such as, indications of vitamin and mineral contact for the product.

SupplementsFor years I have taken some form of supplement in my diet. In my twenties, I ate poorly and led an unhealthy lifestyle. I remember feeling sluggish most times and began to take vitamins daily and noticed a change. As the years passed, I continued to take the vitamins because it was a habit. After becoming involved in this class and learning what many had to say about supplements, I decided that if I ate the recommend daily food intake according to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, such as, at least 2 cups of fruit, 2 ½ cups of vegetables, 3 servings of calcium rich foods and 3 servings of whole grains, I would not need to take all the vitamins that I was taking (Healthcastle.com 2008). So, I stopped. I found that as long as I remained on track with eating the appropriate food groups, I felt great. I still believe that taking a multivitamin daily is important to ensure optimal health, especially for aging or pregnant women.

Food JournalIt takes some getting used to, however, an important nutritional habit I learned is to write down what I eat and calculate it into MyPyramid.gov. This site gave me actual results on my daily intake and after I got the hang of recording my foods and taking the time to enter it in the site I realized that it was worth the effort. I did not save my intake history on several occasions which menat I had to manually input the information again but once I learned to do that, I got the hang of it and it becomes habit forming. I will use this tool above and beyond this class. Prior to doing this my nutritional eating habits were poor. Something about making the effort to write down what I eat becomes more rewarding not only in how I feel, but in how I look too. ...