Baltimore County, MD Time of Your LIfe, 1 Jan 2021

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From YouTube: New Year’s Resolutions – Would Yours Include Eating Healthier?

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Dr. Divya L. Selvakumar, PhD, RD, Manager, Nutrition Office
Baltimore County Department of Aging

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New year's resolutions are quite popular at a time.

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When we consider making positive changes in our lives.

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With us on today's show is dr. divya selvakumar manager of bcda's nutrition, office,.

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Who will be sharing information about healthy eating for the new year.

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Due to a range of health concerns,, please remember to check with your physician prior to making any changes in your dietary habits.

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dr. divya,, welcome to the show..

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Thank you very much,. It's a pleasure to be here today., making better food selections to either improve.

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One's health or even lose weight always seems to be priority when a new year begins.

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Dr. divya,, why is it important to make good food choices to improve one's health?.

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All of us as a whole have to take care of ourselves from time to time,.

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And eating the right types of food is as extremely important.

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Because,, if you take a good look at your current health status, any individual,.

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It is very much related to the oldest saying,.

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You're, what you eat, and you're, also what you digest. the food that you consume, definitely is going to give you your current overall health status.

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Are you consuming a lot of food, for example, that is high in saturated fat,, cholesterol, and sugar?.

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Maybe this is the reason why you are struggling with problems with heart, disease,.

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Obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.

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If we do not take care of ourselves,, we don't eat the right types of food, as well as also make adjustments in our lifestyle, ultimately,. It is going to create a problem with that. Overall.

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The new year, every time when we start a brand-new year,, we want to see if we can focus on something that really is very important to us..

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One of them is making it a point to ensure that to eat the right types of healthy food,.

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Such as whole green, a lot of fruits and vegetable, cutting back on simple carbohydrates,, limiting the fat and sugar intake with regard to protein.

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Choosing lean protein foods such as white meat,,.

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Chicken, turkey,, fish, and tuna,, etc.

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In order to make sure that you're eating a balanced, diet,.

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It's also important to ensure that you're eating food at the right time.

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Of the day, as well as incorporating that with physical exercise,,.

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Stress management, and proper sleeping habit.

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overall,. It is so important that we have to take care of.

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Ourselves with regards to eating the right types to food from day, one.

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How long would you say it takes to alter a habit or pattern.

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Since willpower often becomes an issue when omitting foods, we love from our diets?.

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It varies from person to person., every individual is different,, and we all have to remember that each and.

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Everyone, one of us are unique and we should not be comparing ourselves to anybody. Else.

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This is much easier said than done, because this is where the importance of.

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Self-Respect and self-esteem and being able to focus on the goal is very important.

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If you are truly say, determined to lose weight,, you have to take a good look at your lifestyle, and you also have to look at your commitment and be able to create a few objectives as well. A couple of goals,.

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For the purpose of ensuring that you achieve what you really want to achieve.

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For example, usually, I recommend, when it comes to losing weight, no more than one to two pounds per week., but this can vary from person to person, because every individual, depending.

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On their age, as well as the current metabolism and their also current medical status.,.

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Some people can lose, for example,.

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A lot faster than others, others take quite a long time.. If we want to really give a particular time, period,.

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It is not always possible, but I usually have observed, perhaps maybe a couple of months.

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One to two months to be able to adjust to a new lifestyle.

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Again, with every individual,, sometimes starting with two months, and it can even go for as long as six months,.

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But all depends on the person itself.

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Dr. divya, to support healthy eating,.

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Is it helpful to maintain a diary so that one can document an account of the foods they consume on a daily basis?.

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Oh, yes. to create a food log.

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Is something that several of my clients have done in the past,.

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And it had been very helpful for them.

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what they do is they took a look at the foods that they eat for breakfast,.

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Snacks, in-between meals,, lunch, and dinner.

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I always ask them,: what do you think when you take a good look at say a.

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Three day or four-day account of all the food that you eat,.

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What food do you think could be removed??

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What could you say that you could completely eliminate altogether?.

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What may be, perhaps the food that you can consume in smaller amounts?.

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This gives a client an idea and so give the records, so.

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Because many people, unfortunately when they are struggling to lose weight, they act mindfully, put food in the mouth because they're, hungry or they're not really paying attention to their diet, their mind, scattered all over the place when they're quite stressed,.

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From whatever current situation that they're dealing with,, so that is something that we really want to look at..

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So a food diary or a log, can definitely be both beneficial and helpful in the long run. yes.

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Why should processed food be avoided?.

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Well, anything that is processed usually,.

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Has an abundance of nutrients, or I would.

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Say items that should not be included in our guide.

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For example, too much of fat, too much of cholesterol, too much of unneeded unnecessary sugar.

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We try to look at the food and try to select good food,.

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But often it becomes difficult because, when we're not too sure where a particular food comes from,.

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Then we may find, that the food, if it has like sort of an ambiguous, label,.

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If you cannot even understand ingredients too, well.

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It probably has a lot more things that your body really doesn't need in the long run.

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Processed food generally has been known as well as.

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Refined foods and things that put a lot of.

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Artificial chemicals and just for.

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The purpose of promoting the food to make it taste good in other way,.

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It has shown to unfortunately, contribute to.

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Greater amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol,.

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Which can lead to heart disease. the problems with putting more weight than necessary, that is being overweight or obese,, increasing your blood pressure with too much of salt in it,.

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I should've also mentioned before, and if you happen to have a family history of diabetes,,.

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Increasing the amount of unnecessarily and excess sugar,.

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Which can cause problems with the overall blood sugar level overall.

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Dr. divya, what advice can you provide to support our viewers and helping them to.

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Maintain a regimen of healthier food choices, including satisfying that sweet tooth. We all seem to have.

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Remember life is about enjoying,.

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But you should also remember you should never under indulge or over.

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Indulge when it comes to food. having that balanced diet is very important.

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When we talk about balanced diet,, it can vary again from person to person according to a person's weight, as well as height.

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So eating healthy food is important and if you.

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Want to have the crisps, because, after all, the holidays are coming, [inaudible] ,.

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It's okay to have,, except if you're, truly very serious, about wanting to lose weight,.

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Instead of taking unlike say, a large slice of apple pie or cherry pie or something.,.

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Perhaps maybe you can cut that pie in half or that slice in half, obviously like a cherry.

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If it's say something like cookies and other treats and things for the holiday,.

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Maybe perhaps, if you've taken a small amount., so if you really do have a sweet tooth and a craving for sweets,.

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Just keep in mind, see if we can go for a small amount.

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Maybe a rule of thumb, you can think about this state,. Well, here is the big slice,. Maybe I could take half of it or maybe a quarter of it and see how you feel.

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Then gradually,, when you start training your mind to learning, to cut back,.

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And this is something that's going to take quite some time,, and this is where the willpower and the focus and commitment is going to be picking the consideration.

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This is eventually, you'll start to learn to appreciate that you don't need so much of that sweet food.

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You can just take a small amount, but that doesn't mean that you should completely.

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Eliminate it and miss out on the wonderful things that life has to offer.

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When we think about eating healthy,, what are the key items we should try to increase as well as those we should attempt to avoid..

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Some of them would be fresh fruits and vegetable.

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You can't go wrong with them., I would say: fresh, not frozen,.

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I would not recommend anything that had been in cans,.

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Anything but fresh food,, if you can., like fruits and vegetables, would be a really good example.

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I would suggest that try to see if you can incorporate.

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A vegetable in a lunch and dinner and for fruits, in-between meals.

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It's always a good idea to eat fruit in between meals., because the natural content of the sugar will die just much better if you eat a fruit by itself,.

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As opposed to eating it with something else.

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Another thing to look at would be perhaps looking at some whole grain.

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For example,, if you're not sensitive to gluten, such as whole wheat,.

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Bread and barley and oats, and even other grains like quinoa,.

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Things like bulgur,, buckwheat, ,couscous.

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All of the other important grain that you can just try.

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For protein, also try to see if we can look at more for the plant based protein, such as,.

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Beans and tofu and seitan,- and these would be very beneficial for you, because they.

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Help to cut back on unnecessary amount of fat and cholesterol.

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All of these different types of food can be very much beneficial in the long run, and of course,.

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If you're interested in trying different foods and experimenting.

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And also bringing more recipes to the table,.

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For example, during the pandemic, it would be really beneficial for you to do that.

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One last question.

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What advice can you share for preparing foods that are flavorful and healthy?.

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Try to use a lot of spices,.

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That would be one thing I would like to recommend.

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And something like experimenting with different types of oil.

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I would recommend for example, cooking oil, olive oil,.

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Canola oil,, I personally would like to use avocado oil.

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I also tried sesame oil,, so different types of oil to make your food flavorful.

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Occasionally you can,, because in my culture, since considering my family is from india, and we, in our community,, we use a lot of coconut oil,.

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Even though coconut oil had been criticized quite a bit for a lot of saturated fat.,.

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If you use it in small amount and not on a frequent basis,, it's perfectly okay,.

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And using that, you can just try to.

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Use different types of oil, as well as bringing the types of spices in there.

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Here in the us,, though, we have.

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Various different types of communities that come from all around the world,.

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So many different ethnic cuisine.

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foods that are very popular here are italian,.

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Chinese, mexican, even indian,, and if you also want to look at the traditional american food,.

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You'll see that they use a variety of different types of spices.

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Things such as the rosemary, oregano,, basil,, parsley.,.

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In my culture, we use a lot of cumin and turmeric and chili powder.

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And all these other different spices, if you put them there,, I think definitely.

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And enjoy the whole pot cooking that definitely.

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Would promote your appreciation and enthusiasm towards food.

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Thank you,, dr. divya, for being a guest on today's show.

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I know your information helped a lot of viewers start their healthy eating. Journey.

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It is my pleasure and on behalf of the baltimore county department of aging,,.

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I am the nutrition program manager,.

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I thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to have me on your tv program, today.

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we're going to take a short break,.

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But first please consider viewing bcda's new fitness videos on.

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Comcast channel 25 offered monday through friday at 8:25 am.

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Bcda's, exciting new fitness videos include classes on chair yoga,.

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Power-Up cardios, strength, training,, tai, chi, and zumba.. When we return,, we will conclude today's show with what's happening, virtually that is,.

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In bcda senior centers.