UNO dietitian offers tips for healthy hearts, healthy lives
Caitrin Shirazi
Issue date: 2/10/09 Section: News
| |
|
"Go Red For Women" is the American Heart Association's campaign to eliminate the No. 1 killer of women in the United States: heart disease. Student Health Services graduate student and registered dietitian Julie Denker taught members of UNO's campus tips and tricks for living a healthier lifestyle.
"I want to increase knowledge, not just about women's health, but everyone's. It's a public health issue," Denker said. "Promoting healthy lifestyles here at UNO is important in educating the community as a whole."
Denker shared the basic dos and don'ts of living fit, starting with some brief information and examples of terms used in nutrition.
Most people have heard of saturated fats and transfats, but many do not know what they are or where to find them. Saturated fats are fats that are solid at room temperature like butter or the grease you get from cooking beef.
Transfats are usually hidden in products, because products containing less than one gram of transfat per serving still are allowed to claim they have zero grams on their nutrition labels.
"Most people will eat more than one serving of these products in a sitting, thinking it's OK, believing they don't contain trans fats," Denker said. "When in fact, consuming multiple servings will cause a person to take in quite a bit of trans fats."
A simple trick to remember when trying to find which products contain cholesterol is to determine where the product came from. Then ask yourself, "Does it have a liver?"
Cholesterol is made in the liver of living creatures, so if the product is made from an animal, it's going to have cholesterol.
Finding ways to lower your cholesterol and living a heart-healthy lifestyle can be more work than simply reading the advertisements on the front of packages in the grocery store, though.
Reading the list of ingredients on products and the nutrition facts is important. Just because the package says "whole grain," for example, doesn't mean whole grains are the main ingredient.
The product could consist of a majority of other things like sugars and fats.
When wandering through the produce section, don't skip over the brussels sprouts, either. Just a half of a cup of this vegetable will give you all 3 grams of fiber your daily diet calls for.
Beans are also great for your daily diet. They provide your body with iron, fiber, protein, starch, calcium, B vitamins and soluble fibers without the high amounts of fat and sugar that comes with other products such as milk or meat.
B vitamins, protein and iron are very important to women's diets. Other foods that contain these nutrients include nuts, seeds and low fat dairy.
Soluble fibers are also necessary in your diet when fighting high cholesterol. The fiber particles break down in the stomach, attach to cholesterol that is building up and carry it out of the body.
While canned fruits and vegetables are convenient, they are also higher in preservatives and sodium than regular or frozen produce.
Frozen produce can also sometimes be higher in nutritional value than fresh produce.
This is because the fruits and vegetables are flash frozen at their best, suspending their high nutrient count and providing you with more vitamins and minerals when you prepare and consume them.
Fresh produce you find in stores may have been sitting on trucks and in back rooms for days, losing nutritional value before you purchase it.
Introducing soy into your diet also helps fight cholesterol and lose weight. Soy is easy to find and is now available in a vast variety of flavors and products.
Even if you've tried soy products before and weren't thrilled, try something else: there are many more choices to enjoy and add to your daily diet.
You don't need to go to expensive specialty health food stores to find soy products, either. They are available in everyday grocery stores.
Yogurt is another great food to have in your daily diet. Three servings per day of yogurt with active cultures may lower your blood pressure and help you lose weight.
Two servings of fish a week is also recommended, with salmon and tuna being the best two choices.
Before eating anything, measure out the suggested portions of a product and compare it to your dishes to see just what a single portion looks like in them.
Most people believe they are eating less when using smaller dishes, but that small bowl or plate could still be two or more servings.
When serving dinner, keep food on the counter or in the kitchen, away from the table. Keeping the food from being readily available will reduce your family from idly taking an additional serving.
Switching from regular table salt to sea salt is also recommended.
Having a heart-healthy diet is key to living a healthier lifestyle, but it won't get you results on its own. Exercise is also vital to losing weight and living fit.
A simple way to add some exercise to your day is to park further away from destinations and walk that extra distancWalking burns an equivalent number of calories as doing household chores.
When adapting a healthier lifestyle, remember to do it slowly. Rapid, dramatic changes are difficult and unpleasant to live with and tend to burn out just as quickly as they are started.
If you can, get a friend to "go fit" with you, too. Having someone to exercise and talk with about your goals and plans for healthier future will provide you with support, boost your confidence and reduce the likelihood of backtracking.
Always remember to "exercise, relax and evaluate." After exercising, rest for a few minutes and evaluate how you feel: Is your routine too strenuous and you need to lighten your workout load? Or is it not working you as hard as you would like and you should add a couple more reps?
"My main purpose here is to get the word out and to promote health," Denker said. "I would like to see UNO become a healthier campus."
Denker and UNO Student Health Services plan to hold another free event to promote healthy living in March. The date has not been determined.
Be the first to comment on this story