How To Change The Way You Eat

Someone I love was recently diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, so I thought this would be a good time to answer Teresa's question on one of my recent menu plans.

I SO DESPERATELY want to eat "cleaner" as you put it but I am no chef/cook. I am a picky person as I grew up only eating about 5 different things in rotation. The only vegetable I had growing up with either canned corn or green beans. So...everything is new to me. I buy tomatoes at the Farmer's Market and make fresh salsa with it as it's an excellent way to eat fresh veggies but that's about it because I have no clue what to do with the other stuff. Do you have any simply healthy recipes I could attempt or any tips or ideas for someone like me?

Metabolic syndrome isn't a classified disease; rather, it's a collection of risk factors that together raise the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Having metabolic syndrome doesn't mean you're doomed to insulin injections, but if it were you, would you be willing to take the chance?

The best way to approach a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome is to change the way you eat, but before you can do that, you need to know where you are starting from.

I read about this approach to examining your shopping and eating habits in Prevention magazine, one of my favorite sources for information on health and wellness.

Sit down with your most recent grocery receipt and three different colored highlighters. Designate one color for each category and start coloring. One color is for fresh foods, another is for items that are packaged but still good for you (such as brown rice or fat-free yogurt with live cultures) and the third is for non-healthy items (such as cookies or white bread). You should aim to have 75% of your receipt be from one of the first two categories.

I decided to try it out. Here is a picture of my receipt from the day after we returned from vacation. Yellow items are the fresh meat and produce, pink are the healthy-yet-packaged items and the items circled in teal are the unhealthy options. My receipt also has a fourth color. The two items circled in pen are non-food items that I picked up while I was in the store, a cooking magazine and a box of much needed allergy pills.



On this receipt, the only thing in the teal category is a box of frozen chicken nuggets that I bought for the kids. I prefer to make my own, but I've been lazy lately, so I bought a box of the kind that can be microwaved.

Here is the receipt from the shopping trip for this menu plan. On this trip, my teal items were a candy bar and two pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream (requests from my husband), a jar of mayonnaise, and a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing. Sometimes I make my own salad dressing, but other times I like to buy the original. It tastes good, what can I say? I did buy the reduced-fat version of the mayonnaise. I also classified the bacon as a pink item on this receipt because while bacon isn't something that you should eat all the time, I buy the center cut version since it is leaner. If my family would eat turkey bacon, I would buy that. But they won't, so center cut it is.



Once you've color coded your receipt, you can see how you are doing. Didn't do so well? Take your receipt on your next trip and try to do better. Or take a look at the teal items and try to replace them with healthier versions. On my own advice, I swapped the frozen chicken nuggets for the kids for lower-fat MorningStar Farms veggie nuggets. They cost only ten cents more per ounce, and I can get coupons for them. The kids are getting used to the change, but I think they're delicious, much better than the Tyson stuff.

Nutrition is a personal interest of mine and I like to cook, but my interest in providing healthy meals for my family really took off once I had children and became a stay-home mom. I used to buy organic ketchup for Johnny and regular ketchup for my husband and I, but at some point, got tired of having two versions of everything. And if it was good for him to eat natural, unprocessed foods, shouldn't we eat the same way?

In addition, I've had some health challenges over the past year, primarily migraine headaches and thyroid disease, and discovered that a lot of conventional treatments for ailments don't work for me. Either the medication doesn't work at all, or the side effects are too much for me to handle. And while the triptans I'm taking to treat my migraines work reasonably well, I'd rather not get the headaches in the first place. So I am currently researching natural ways to prevent them.

Since changing the way I approach food and eating, I've never felt better. I have more energy, my skin and hair look better, my digestion has improved, and my weight has remained stable. And while in some ways it can be more expensive to buy healthy food, it also serves as an easy method of portion control.

I'm still working on the soda habit, and trying to cut back on candy, but it's a work in progress. And if I can do it, you can too.

There is a lot of information out there, and it can be hard to sort through it and remember all the details. To get you started, here is a list of my favorite resources.

Chef MD's Big Book Of Culinary Medicine by John La Puma--The author of this book is a doctor who had put on too much weight. So he researched the science of nutrition and also went to culinary school to learn how to cook. The result is this book. Recipes and information on foods that treat common health problems without sacrificing taste.
The Best Life Diet by Bob Greene--I haven't personally read this book, I'm on the waiting list for it at the library, but it was recommended by Jen at Lords Of The Manor. Bob Greene is Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer. The reviews on Amazon say that if you can look past the product placement, this is a good resource for beginners.
Best Healing Foods For Dummies by Molly Siple--Fresh food is full of vitamins and minerals that we need to stay healthy. This book is a no nonsense guide to choosing healthy produce.
Prevention Magazine --My favorite guide to the latest research on healthy living and eating well.
Clean Eating Magazine --The latest edition to my library, this quarterly magazine is a wealth of information on eating well. The magazine also features monthly meal plans and well-written articles on whether or not you should consider the latest supplements. And while I have never and will never enjoy tofu, most of the recipes are foods that even picky eaters will eat (or at least try). I've been thrilled with every single recipe from this magazine that I have tried.
Healthy Cooking Magazine --Formerly Light and Tasty, this magazine stresses that good-for-you food should also taste good. Each recipe has nutrition facts, some have diabetic exchanges, and each issue also features low-salt, low-fat or low-carb recipes for those on special diets. I especially like the recipe makeover section, in which the nutritionists on staff take reader's family favorites and make them healthier without losing the taste. This is real food for real people, with ingredients that you can buy at your local grocery store.
Mommy, What's For Dinner?--All the recipes on this blog have been tested either by myself, by Jen or by her SIL, Amber. Some recipes have photos, and there are links to our favorite cookbooks, cooking gadgets and resources.
Supercook--I just read about this website in a magazine. It's the most specific recipe search engine I've ever seen, and I'm impressed with the quality of the recipes it generates.
Andrew Weil, MD--A well-known holistic practitioner, Andrew Weil is my go-to source for herbal or alternative remedies. His website is chockful of information.
Guideposts Magazine--There are some recipes in the magazine and on the site, but more importantly, this publication makes me feel spiritually healthy. It's filled from cover to cover with stories of the power of God's love for us, and the incredible gift that life is. And when I read this magazine, I feel enormously inspired to do my best, be my best, and take care of myself, so I can be here to enjoy my family, my kids and my life.

Have you had to change the way you eat? How did you do it? Please let me know if you have any additional resources to add to my list!