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Small Changes Yield Big Benefits


You can start today - right now, even - on a road to feeling better, looking better, living longer and enjoying a far better quality of life.

We're all familiar with the big steps:

If you smoke, do yourself and those who love you a huge favor - STOP. It'll be the best, though possibly the hardest, gift you ever give them.

Nix unhealthy vices such as drinking, speeding, taking your health and safety for granted, etc.

However many fruits and vegetables you consume, double that!

Those are the "Big Ones", and I don't have to tell you how important they are, but this article is about the "Little Ones". They don't have the publicity of the larger steps, but they're every bit as important.

In no particlular order, here are the small steps I'd love for you to start taking. Ideally, you'll take each and every step each and every day - but realistically, you should just aim at doing just as many as you can, just as often as you can. Let's get to it!

Limit empty calories. You can't cut them out entirely, but try to ditch as many sodas, doughnuts, cookies, chips, fries, etc, as you can. Next time you go to your favorite fast food restaurant (go ahead and admit it, I've seen you there!), have a salad in place of the fries and rink tea instead of pop.

Replace eating red meat with chicken or fish at every opportunity. The steps will be even bigger if you make sure the chicken or fish is grilled or baked instead of fried.

If you're trying to lose weight, switch to using artificial sweetener in your tea and coffee, and switch to a diet drink. A while back, I began a weight loss regime. I simply began using the little pink packets in my morning coffee instead of sugar, and I sweetened my tea with artificial sweetener instead of the cup of sugar I normally used. The final switch I made was going from Dr. Pepper to Diet Dr. Pepper. These are the only changes I made to my diet, and I quickly lost over 10 pounds. You quickly get accustomed to (and even begin to prefer!) the diet drinks and sweetener. I literally can't stand the taste of regular pop now, something I was once incredibly addicted to.

Begin walking. Start with a trip around your neighborhood or a stroll through the park or mall. Heck, even start with lapping Wal-Mart, just start and start today. Make your walking a priority and don't allow anything to interfere with it. You will soon be so hooked on the "walking buzz" that you won't allow yourself to miss a single day. When weather or illness prevents me from walking for a day, I feel crummy, absolutely crummy!

Small changes can yield very big, glorious results. My husband once told me that he had shaved stubborn strokes off of his all-important golf game. I asked him if he'd gotten new clubs, new balls, changed his stance or started scoring creatively. He showed me one tiny little maneuver with the positioning of his hands - he said it made all the difference in the world. All he did was change his thumb's stance!

In closing, here's a website I'd like for you to check out: The Longevity Game. It makes you think - and thinking's usually a good thing.

Keep checking Buttermilk Press.com, as we'll be adding health and fitness related articles at an alarming pace. Make these changes today and you'll be thankful tomorrow!

Joi Sigers, of Hightide Web Publishing, is a web designer, web publisher and web editor.


MORE RESOURCES:

Breeding the Nutrition Out of Our Food
New York Times
WE like the idea that food can be the answer to our ills, that if we eat nutritious foods we won't need medicine or supplements. We have valued this notion for a long, long time. The Greek physician Hippocrates proclaimed nearly 2,500 years ago: “Let ...



Gruel today, gruel tomorrow
The Economist (blog)
Adam Drewnowski, director of the Centre for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington, will not be among them. “To some extent, Soylent is an expensive glass of milk,” he says. While Soylent's $65 weekly price-tag is certainly cheaper ...



Hammond schools staff gets a lesson in good nutrition
nwitimes.com
Julie Boettger, director of food and nutrition for the School City of Hammond, invited Story to not only give the students a treat, but to improve the school kitchens and brush up on staff skills. "The initiatives we're undertaking is not only to ...

and more »


One-Size Nutrition Profession Doesn't Fit All
Huffington Post
But astonishingly, health professionals with nutrition tools to reverse chronic health conditions are gagged in many states. In those states, nutrition counseling is essentially permitted only by credentials of a private trade association big and well ...



U.S. Catholic magazine

Food Bank decries cuts to nutrition program, 'is not capable' of filling gap
The Coloradoan
To the United States House Committee on Agriculture, it's the dent it could make in the several-trillion-dollar national deficit by scaling back funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (more commonly known as food stamps). To more than ...
GOP senator: Food stamp spending to remain double pre-recession levelsDaily Caller
Roberts: I Vow to Restore Integrity to the Food Stamp Programhays Post
Farm Bill Should Ensure a Healthier America. Here's How.PCRM (blog)
NutraIngredients-usa.com -Kennebec Journal -Los Angeles Times
all 45 news articles »


In defense of dietitians: How best to deal with America's fast food addiction?
Baltimore Brew
At the recent Maryland Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics annual meeting, a McDonald's spokesperson presented their new, healthy menu options and offered nutrition-related advice on fast foods. Soon after, The Brew published an opinion piece by Dr.

and more »


Raw Story

9-year-old girl lectures McDonald's CEO about children's nutrition
Raw Story
Nine-year-old Hannah Robertson put McDonald's CEO Don Thompson on the spot on Thursday at the corporation's annual shareholders' meeting. According to USA Today, the girl was attending the meeting with her mother, Kia, designer of a “Today I Ate a ...
At annual meeting, McDonald's CEO fields questions on nutrition, wagesChicago Tribune
9-year-old girl lectures McDonald's CEO on nutritionNews10.net
McDonald's faces nutrition critics at shareholder meetingTheNewsTribune.com
WWL -brandchannel.com -allvoices
all 61 news articles »


Sticky nutrition | The scoop on coconut oil
The Courier-Journal
A longtime writer of the Thursday Health & Fitness section, Darla will find and post stories, blogs and news items every day on health, fitness and nutrition – all intended to help keep you and your family healthier. She is a Louisville native and ...



Get nutrition tips while you shop
Cincinnati.com
The Northern Kentucky Diabetes Coalition is hosting free supermarket tours to provide nutrition information to those with diabetes. The tours are planned for: • 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 4, at Meijer, 4990 Houston Road, Florence. Meet at the store ...



NPR (blog)

Nutrition Group Says Chocolate Milk Is OK, No Need For Aspartame
NPR (blog)
A controversial petition by the dairy industry to allow milk sweetened with aspartame or other alternative sweeteners to be labeled on the front of the carton simply as MILK is drawing criticism from the nation's leading group of nutritionists. The ...

and more »

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