Healthy Eating: Simple Ways to Plan, Enjoy, and Stick to a Healthy Diet

Eating healthy is about well-being, improving the mood and overall health. In order to eat healthier, you don’t have to give up your favorite dish or be on any restrictive diet. The online space is filled with conflicting diet and nutrition advice, and you can easily get overwhelmed after a while.

Don’t worry, it not just you, there are a lot of people feeling the same way. Don’t listen to all you hear about healthy eating and get well educated instead. These simple guidelines will help you to differentiate good from wrong, and hopefully, you’ll achieve to create a tasty, nutritious and colorful diet which will improve your mind and body.

Why is healthy diet good for your mood?

First of all, healthy eating can help you to maintain your perfect weight and lower risk for various health problems. On the other hand, the food you consume will also affect your sense of wellbeing. Your mood will be different if your diet is based on processed meals, fast food, and snacks filled with sugar and fat.

People who eat this way are more likely to get:

• Depressed 
• Stressed
• Or can develop anxiety and bipolar disorder. 

In addition, bad diet may cause Alzheimer’s disease, trigger schizophrenia or ADHD.

Another option, which is much better for your health is to cook meals at home. Those meals should include less sugar and refined carbohydrates, and more fish, vegetables, and fresh fruits. By developing some healthy eating habits you can cure yourself or work on efficient prevention.

Elderly show us it's never too late to eat healthy

Many poor communities in South Africa have less access to healthy food, but one woman is determined to teach senior citizens in Mamelodi, Pretoria, about living a healthy and nutritious lifestyle. 

Reabetjoe Mokoko is an entrepreneur, student and aspiring dietitian who decided it is up to her to motivate and encourage the elderly in her community to change their eating ways.

"We live in times of non-communicable diseases – lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension – diseases that can be prevented by leading the correct lifestyle," she said.

"So if we are able to motivate and encourage people to lead healthy lifestyles, we actually protect them from things like diabetes and high blood pressure which have serious consequences."

The 27-year-old adds that her weekly visits to the Matomba/ Sinqobile Day Care for the elderly has opened her eyes to how little knowledge they have about healthy eating.

Hungry people pay more attention to junk food than healthy food

When hunger strikes, Ring Dings and pizza earn your attention far more than apples and wheatgrass, science says.

Freepik

HEADING TO THE grocery store for your weekly food run is never a good idea when you're hungry (or after smoking weed). Sure enough, a bunch of processed crap will inevitably end up in your basket while your belly rumbles and your brain searches for fuel.

But why that phenomenon happens was not well-understood by food scientists, until a new study from Johns Hopkins University tackled the topic. As it turns out, you don't even have to be in the grocery store for the effect to take hold.

Halloween costume WARNING: Why you should NEVER let your kids wear fashion contact lenses

HALLOWEEN costume contact lenses increases the risk of ending up in hospital and could leave you blind, doctors have warned.

• Contact lenses could cause serious damage to eyes
• May lead to blindness
• Doctors warn not to share contact lenses
• Don't let contact lenses come into contact with water

Wearing funky-coloured contact lenses with your scary halloween outfit is unlikely to cause any lasting damage, if they were bought at registered opticians or doctors.

But, more than half of people admitted buying cosmetic contact lenses from joke shops or over the internet, a survey revealed.

Without important safety checks and advice given by opticians when buying the lenses, the public risks serious damage to their eyes, according to the General Optical Council.

Healthy Now: Embrace Halloween with pumpkin cheesecake oatmeal

Remember that scene in "The Shining" where Jack Nicholson's wife read's her husband John's manuscript and discovers he has written hundreds of pages filled with "All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy"?

Such a great, scary movie and perfect for Halloween. And such great words to live by: all work and no play is a dull way to go. At Truckee-Donner Recreation & Park District we embrace that philosophy and this time of year we tend to swing a little more toward the "play" and less toward the "work."