Joeann Brewster - Meal for the Week: Anti Inflammatory Recipes and Diet Foods

Making the Commitment

If you wish to change your lifestyle to a healthier one,nutrition is a great place to start. One thing that helps above is planning. If you plan your meals ahead of time, you will be less likely to cheat and willbe able to stick with the plan. The goal of this book is to provide you with agreat number of nutritious recipes to help with menu planning. You will findthe recipes in this book to be the top in nutrition covering a variety ofdiets. You can mix and match the recipes with great results if your goal is tolive a healthier lifestyle.

Get out your pen and paper and create the menu for the nextweek. If you are new to meal planning, take it one week at a time so it willnot overwhelm you. Look through the recipes in this book and plan the suppersfirst, since they are the largest meals. If you play it right, you may be ableto arrange it so you have leftovers you can eat for your lunch the next day. The recipes are easily doubled or tripled. Next, plan the breakfasts. Lastlyplan the snacks and desserts. This book contains several dessert, appetizer,and snack recipes. Feel free to add to the snacks by choosing fresh fruit, rawveggies, nuts, or even leftovers.

Once you make your menu, you need to create your grocerylist. Try to think of your favorite grocery store and create the listaccording to the layout of the store, that way you will not be off lookingaround for items on the list. Once you get home, take a few minutes to prep thefoods that need prepping to save on time during the week. Cut up thevegetables, etc. the foods that will keep okay like that. This will make yourmeals of the week easier to deal with and prepare.

Making the Dieting a Success

Now that you are on your way with a great meal plan, you cando a few other things to make your new lifestyle a success. You must deal withany junk food habits you have. If you are addicted to junk food, you will gothrough withdrawals. But once you completely wean from junk food your cravingswill turn to craving more nutritious foods, the very foods you find in therecipes in this book. First, though, deal with your bad eating habits to makethis dieting change a success.

For the first 3 weeks of the diet allow yourself to eat someof the junk foods in which you are addicted. Try to recall the last week whatyou ate and write it down. Now you can make the change slowly, replacing onemeal or snack of junk food every three to five days with healthier meals andsnacks. By the end of three weeks, you should be weaned from the junk foods.

Incorporate plenty of water with your dieting routine. Water goes well with all diets and is a requirement for your body in order tobe healthy. Without water, your body will become dehydrated. Without plentyof water, your body will become sluggish. Water helps to cleanse the body,making sure the digestive system runs well. Water also helps to keep the skinclear. If you are dieting to lose weight, water certainly helps with that. Inaddition, ironically, if you are bloated with "water weight,"drinking more water helps your body to get rid of the bloat.

You need to drink according to your weight. There is astandard "eight glasses of water a day" that you may hear. This isonly true if you weigh one hundred twenty-eight pounds. To calculate how muchwater you need a day take your body weight and divide by two. That total isthe total in ounces of how much water you need. Say you weigh one hundred andfifty pounds, you divide that by two, and you have seventy-five pounds. So ifyou weigh one hundred and fifty pounds you would need about seventy-five ouncesof water a day, or about a little over nine cups a day.

One More Thing To Make a Healthy Lifestyle

It is hard not to discuss exercise when discussing anutritious diet. Diet and exercise go hand in hand when it come to yourhealth. The body needs physical activity in order to be in top healthy shape. Take the time to work out in a good exercise routine at least three times aweek. If you are not accustomed to doing this, start slow. You may find it isa tough thing to do at first, because it requires more energy than you may feellike you have. But you will find something wonderful happens. You will startto have more energy the more you are physically active. You take the time toexercise your metabolism will be boosted.

Exercise is even helpful to those who suffer frominflammation issues. If you eat foods and recipes from the anti inflammation,diet (found within this book) you will find your body is better able to dealwith the inflammation and it may go away altogether. Exercise may help to keepcholesterol and blood sugars regulated and the blood pressure normal. Theseissues alone should give you incentive to get up and get to moving.

Start slow with exercise, even just walking leisurely forhalf an hour every other day will suffice. You can work up to doing moreintense exercises like aerobics, swimming, bicycling, or jogging. If you want,join a gym, but that's not necessary. Just do something physical every otherday for half an hour at a time.

Seek the advice of your health care provider before startingany new diet or exercise. This book contains information to help you have asuccessful diet and any advice you take you need to clear with your health careprovider.