Truth About Protein cont..

In my previous post,  I wrote about some of the truths of a diet consisting of primarily animal proteins.  I wanted to do a follow up on what a healthy diet should consist of.

If you read my last story, you know that a diet high in animal proteins in extremely unhealthy. Excessive amounts of meat, dairy, and eggs raises cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and causes plaque build up in your arteries.  An acceptable amount of meat per day should not exceed 6oz.  That's in an entire day,  not just per meal.   That meat should also be organic, free range. If it is not organic,  you are exposing yourself to artificial hormones, antibiotics, and possible irradiation that the meat was sent through.  If its not organic you should just skip it all together.

Being that most Americans base their meals around meat, we don't know how to replace it with healthy options.  I come across vegetarians and vegans who really just became
pastavours. You are not doing yourself any favors if you replace meat with a ton of white flour foods (white bread, noodles, deserts...). 

The diet that every person should be following is a whole foods, plant based diet.  What this means is your diet should be centered around eating plants and whole foods.  Your food should be eaten in the way nature produced it.  No artificial garbage that has a list of ingredients that requires a haz-mat suit to  be around.  Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, brown rice, oatmeal, beans, herbs, and potatoes.  There is infinite possibilities to the wonderful creations you can make with these ingredients. Every time you eat, you have the opportunity to nourish your body or cause harm to your body.  Why anyone would do the later, I don't know,  after all,  you have one life and one body,  if you destroy it, what are you left with?  How you want to spend your golden years is entirely up to you.  In a hospital bed simply existing, or with the ones you love living life to the fullest.  

It may seem like a daunting task for some people to change their diet,  but the truth is, it's so simple.  I hate to even use the word diet when describing this, it is truly     a new way if life.  If you adopt this lifestyle,  you never have to track another carb, calorie, or fat molecule a day in your life.  Your energy levels will soar,  you'll sleep like a log, and you will drop excesses weight like its going out if style.

Where to start;

First place to start is just simply adding fruit.  When you just need a snack, before reaching for that bag of chips, eat fruit and eat as much of it as u want!  Fill up on it,  then see if you still want those chips.  Also,  during that time,  try and reduce your intake of sugary foods.  That means soft drinks, Stop those immediately (even diet,  that's worse the regular)  in time,  that fruit will satisfy you like it did before you loaded your body with white processed sugars.

At this point,  start adding more vegetables into your meals.  Add them into a stir fry,  take a bigger helping at dinner.  Just keep adding vegetables everywhere you can.  Reduce the amount of meat on your sandwich and add hummus, onions, tomatoes,  lettuce, spinach, sprouts, and anything else you can think of!  Get creative!  Garlic and fresh herbs make wonderful additions to everything. Search the Internet for recipes and ideas,  it doesn't have to be complicated,  just keep it simple.  

Now, stop all white flour products.  100% whole wheat only.  Even though you are eating whole wheat,  don't overdo it on these.  Make pasta,  but load it with vegetables and fresh, homemade or organic  pasta sauce.  Careful when it comes to prego or other mass produced sauces.  They load them with preservatives and sugars. Again, I cant stress enough, don't load up on these.  Rice, Beans, red skin potatoes and sweet potatoes are great staple foods.  Eat these with large amounts of all different colored vegetables. 

I want to add a special paragraph strictly to breakfast.  Oatmeal should become your best friend.  Eat it everyday.  Please don't get those prepackaged ones either.  Get actual old fashion oat meal and make it in a pot.  Wake up 5 minutes earlier and do this.  Fill it with berries and sweeten it with honey or REAL maple syrup.  The health benefits of oatmeal are  to long to even talk about.  Your weight,  blood pressure, cholesterol will all drop,and quick.  It will also remove toxins from your body.

Experiment with different tea's.  try some flavored green tea or herbal teas and put then over ice.  Sweeten them with a little honey.  My personal favorite is green mint tea over ice.  Don't forgot to drink lots of water. 

Changing your lifestyle is something only you can do.  It is 100% your choice to make.  Remember though,  you are not going on a diet,  you are completely changing your life.  Take your time,  do it right.  It doesn't have to be over night.  I guarantee that the healthier you eat, the healthier you'll want to eat because you will feel better and better.  

You only have one life and one body.  Do everything you can to not suffer the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle.  Don't let the people around you ruin your future health.  I get picked on daily for my health beliefs because they are not the status quo of an American firefighter.  Stay strong and enjoy it!  You'll be bursting with energy and soon,  just like I've experienced,  those same people will want to know how you do it!