Sunday, May 20, 2007

Your Eyes are Bigger than Your Stomach

Remember when you were a child and your mother told you to eat all of your food because it was good for you? And she also reminded you how fortunate you were to have food on your plate because there were poor children in Biafra who didn’t have anything to eat.

Well, you’re all grown up now and while it’s important to maintain a healthy, nutritious diet, there is no need to CLEAN YOUR PLATE. That means it’s unnecessary to pile on all you can eat because “it just looks so delicious” and then go out of your way to finish it all. Calories add up---especially at middle age---while your metabolism is continuing to slow down. If you’re taking in more than you’re burning off, you could easily see an extra 5-10 pounds in a matter of months.

More fruits and vegetables are definitely the way to go. Why not try color-coded days by eating only fruits and vegetables of a certain color. For example: On Monday, make it a green day and eat all vegetables and fruits that are green in color. For lettuce, I would recommend a mixed green variety because plain lettuce has no nutritional value. On Tuesday, you could do a red day and so on and so forth.

Today, I decided to do a mix and match day: purple and red so I’m loading up on the blueberries, strawberries, and watermelon.

3 comments:

Carine-what's cooking? said...

Bev,
good tips! I've always been pretty good at maintaining my weight by eating a diet of mostly veggies and fruit, high fiber and lean proteins. Until this broken foot thing, it's worked. Now w/ the added bonus of menopause, I'm finding I must even cut down on the good stuff!

Kacey said...

Sounds like a good way to eat, especially since I need to lose forty pounds. I am left wondering if any day's official color is chocolate?

Bev Mahone said...

Hi Kacey!

First of all, thanks for dropping by. Second, you can have a "brown" day...eat some brown rice, almonds or pecans and throw in a little chocolate on the side :)