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Start a new eating habit
One of our major New Year’s resolutions is to ditch our bad eating habits and replace them with healthy ones. We figure the best way to do this is to work on one thing at a time. So each month we’ll be introducing ONE new healthy eating habit you can adopt. You don’t have to change anything else in your diet (although you can if you want!)
Once you’ve got used to this new habit and can stick to it, you move onto the next one. Before you know it, you’ll be eating and thinking healthy. How easy!
Month One: Drink healthier drinks
WHY? First of all, think about what sugary drinks like soft drinks, energy drinks and some juices provide. They hide heaps of empty calories that add to your daily intakes of calories - without adding anything to your nutrition. In fact the sugars in fizzy drinks these days, provide around 20% of the average teenager’s daily calorie intake. That means 1/5 of the calories we’re swallowing don’t have any nutritional value whatsoever!
Does it satisfy your appetite? There’s no fooling the human body. It knows the difference between real food and drinks! But it can barely tell the difference between a calorie-loaded fizzy drink and the equivalent amount of water. So if you’ve got an appetite, eat food and your body will tell you it’s full. Drink fizzy and you’ll load up on calories - but you’ll still feel hungry.
Try calorie-trading Instead of throwing down a can of fizzy (approx 140 calories), have a glass of water instead. That way you’ll quench your thirst - and it’s free from the tap!
How?
Here’s some tips for how to replace soft drinks with healthy ones:
- Ultimately your first choice of drink a glass of water or milk, but If you can’t manage this, make it every second beverage. After you’re used to that, choose natural juices and herbal teas in between
- Keep a bottle of water in your bag or car
- Keep a jug of water in the fridge - add some mint and lemon to make it taste good
- Don’t keep soft drinks or energy drinks in the house
- If you HAVE to have a soft drink in the early days, just have half a glass
Tasty options:
- Water / flavoured (but not sugared) waters
- Sparkling water
- Milk - go for low fat options which are higher in calcium
- Natural lemonade - squeeze your own and sweeten with honey!
- Herbal teas
- Smoothies and 100% pure juices
- Natural juice ice-blocks
Remember, the best way to change a habit is to do it slowly - put too much pressure on yourself, and it’ll be way harder to keep it up..
Working on healthy beverages will give you enough to think about for this month. Next month we’ll be looking at healthy snack options!
Best of the rest
