What is your approach to incorporating balance into a healthy diet and lifestyle?

Question

Rosanne Rust,MS,RDN · Answer

What is your approach to incorporating balance into a healthy diet and lifestyle in? This is about balancing. What we know are healthy nutrient-dense foods with indulgent Foods foods that hold a special place in our families or our culture's. So this means you're choosing those healthier foods, most of the time and then you're not putting any guilt toward those, indulgent Foods you're in Including a little bit of everything. So variety is very important in terms of balancing things out. I recommend a Dash style diet or following the dietary guidelines for Americans in terms of parameters of certain nutrients. And the lifestyle component is important to Fitness and Stress Management not smoking. Moderate alcohol to no alcohol. That's balance.

Tara Collingwood, MS, RDN, CSSD · Answer

What is my approach to incorporating balance into healthy diet and lifestyle? I think this is absolute key and I love food as I'm sure you do and it's one of the pleasures in life. And so if I can make the base of what I'm doing, be healthy and be foods that give me good nutritional value. Then there's a little bit of room for the fun stuff for me. It's chocolate for you. It might be wine or bacon or something like that, but we can incorporate some of those things in. When we have that healthy base, that most of the time, I'm eating things that have nutritional value, that fuel, me with the right kinds of things. And then, we also talked about balance, it's also with, with physical activity. So balancing some of those, the, the activity that I'm doing so that I'm not only burning calories, but also maintaining muscle and that helps with my posture. It helps with activities of daily living and, and going out, and having fun1. And that's Science as well. And so I try to balance fun and work and sleep, and rest and relaxation and, you know, playtime. And so, you know, I think just always focusing on making sure that you're having some of those things on a daily basis. I look for joy every single day in my life because that helps me to balance the stress along with the joy and find gratitude in every day.

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD · Answer

The question here is, what is my approach to incorporating balance into a healthy diet and lifestyle? Well, if we don't have balance, whatever change. We wish to make, even with the best intentions, they won't occur. And why is that? Because balance needs to exist. We have to realize that we are human. That we are individuals that even though we know that having pizza. Every night isn't a good option, that that might not be great for our mental health, for our wait, for our disease risk, having pizza on Friday night, once a week. That could be completely fine. So that's an example of balance and all-or-nothing approach. When we look at the data, does not something that typically works for most people, it can work, short term. So you can reach whatever goal, you're trying to reach, you could lose the 10 pounds. That's a great example of a goal that many of my patients come to me with, but let me see what you are dealing with three months, three years, five years, down the road. If you don't have balance those short-term goals, just fizzled, This is why most New Year's resolutions are gone by mid-February. So let's look at this in a different way. Let's rewrite the nutrition story and look at, what are the things we love that. We know are not good for us, pick your poison, we all have some I love potato chips for you. It could be cookies but choose how you incorporate those into your dietary lifestyle maybe it's once a week maybe it's once a month who knows? But choose how you can have them. And here's the really important thing when you do have them, don't have the guilts don't have the Shane don't have all those things that are associated with it because that just makes you want more of it and eat more of it. So there's a lot to uncover here in a lot to unpack. We need a lot more than 120 seconds. To answer this one, but balance is going to be key. If you want to sustain any lifestyle change. It's okay to have the cookie. Just don't have the cookie every day.

Keith Ayoob, EdD, RDN, FAND · Answer

What's my approach to incorporating balance into a healthy diet and lifestyle? Good question, because a healthy lifestyle includes, not just diet, but also physical activity, and stress reduction. And, you know, doing things to really support, being healthy and happy. And one of the things that I do is, yes, starts by eating healthy, healthy diet, that's good and balanced. I picked, you know, I tell people to pick their favorite foods there. My favorite healthy foods. What's your favorite fruit? What's your favorite vegetable? Have those more often, that's way to build a healthier diet. Starting with what you like that. You know, what's healthy and remember that diet healthy diet is a balance. Between what we know we need and what we don't want to live without because indulgences need to be in there. Question is, frequency and quantity. Now, once you have a good healthy diet, it's important and it is absolutely critical to be moving. Okay. Physical activity is part About healthy lifestyle, it's not just for, you know, burning calories and all that. It also can be really changes your metabolism. It lowers your health risks. If you could get into a pill, which you can get from the benefits of being Physically, Active, everybody would want it. So, think about that, and I've worked for many years with people who have serious physical disabilities, and people say, you know, you go to the gym. You do a lot of walking. Why? Because I can, and it's a privilege and that's the way I have come to see it. Many of my patients can't do that. They would love to be able to do that since I can. I want to make that part of my healthy lifestyle also, I'm a meditator, okay, I meditate every day, but that's my thing, it's not everybody's and I would say a good amount of healthy, eating healthy, physical activity, and enough things to, to develop that you enjoy. And that also make you feel good and less stressed. That's part of a healthy lifestyle as well.

Molly Morgan, RD, CDN · Answer

The approach I take to incorporating balance in a healthy eating routine and lifestyle is really trying to get people to focus mostly on what they know they need to be eating more of. And that list of foods looks a little different for most, you know, from person to person, but for most people, it would be things like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, dairy foods, healthy fats, the list goes on and on. And of course, gets adjusted depending on your eating needs and preferences. But when you focus mostly on those nutrient-rich foods, it really helps shift the mindset to not what I can't have, but what do I need to be eating more of or most of? And then I try to use what I call either like a 90-10 or 80-20 rule, kind of depending on the person, and have those meals or snacks that aren't maybe full of the most nutrient-rich foods, whatever your favorite things might be. And then the next meal or snack is get right back to your eating routine and plan. And I love that this question also asks about lifestyle because staying active is so important for so many different reasons, from our mental health to our physical health to our heart health. And, you know, activity looks different for every person. It could be participating in a sport. It could be going for a hike or bike ride. It could be working in the garden, doing housework. There's so many different ways to stay active in our lifestyle. But if you have more specific questions on this topic of balance, it's one that I do think really important. I'd be happy to try and answer them for you. And I hope you found the information helpful.

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"What is your approach to incorporating balance into a healthy diet and lifestyle?"