Focus on the Big Diet Picture

Knowing you should eat a healthy diet is one thing. Doing it is another. Paying attention to the overall pattern of what you eat can help simplify the process.

“The basics of a healthy diet are surprisingly simple, but often people get distracted by focusing on extremes or thinking they have to eat off a list of allowed foods,” says Andrea Giancoli, R.D., a Los Angeles-based spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "In most cases, if you eat reasonable portions of healthy foods most of the time, you can even enjoy some of your favorite foods that aren’t as healthy without worrying about it.”

Eating with the big picture in mind is easier to accomplish. Studies confirm that those who do so enjoy better health.

For example, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition followed 44,000 men for eight years. It concluded that a person's overall diet makes the biggest impact on health. Specifically, the study found that men who ate a lot of red meat, processed meat, refined grains, and sweets were 64 percent more likely to develop heart disease than men with the healthiest diets.

The big picture

The best way to give your body the balanced nutrition it needs is by eating a variety of nutrient-packed foods every day. “Just be sure to stay within your daily calorie needs and mix up your choices within each food group,” says Giancoli.

Here are other ideas:

• Vary your veggies. Eat plenty of dark green veggies, such as broccoli, kale, and leafy greens. Include orange veggies, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin. Don't forget pinto beans, kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, and lentils.

• Add vegetables to almost everything you eat. Add red and green roasted peppers to pasta sauce. Put in a layer of vegetables when making lasagna. Top pizza with handfuls of diced onion, mushrooms, and peppers.

• Focus on fruit. Eat a variety of fruits. You can choose fresh, frozen, canned, or dried. Limit fruit juice.

• Choose calcium-rich foods. Get three cups of low-fat or fat-free milk every day. You can substitute low-fat yogurt for milk.

• Grab whole grains. Eat at least three servings of whole-grain cereals, breads, rice, or pasta every day. Look to see that grains such as wheat, rice, oats, or corn are referred to as “whole” or “unrefined” in the list of ingredients.

• Pick lean protein. The leanest sources of protein include turkey breast, skinless chicken breast, and egg whites. Other sources are lean red meats, low-fat yogurt, skim milk, low-fat cheese, beans, all fish and seafood, split peas, chickpeas, and tofu.

• Cut back on foods high in saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol. A diet high in saturated fat is linked to heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and cancer. Keep your saturated fat intake at less than seven percent of total calories.

Eating well is the best way to maintain a healthy weight and protect yourself from chronic conditions like heart disease, says Giancoli. “People whose diets are based on getting specific nutrients tend to miss the boat when it comes to enjoying food, both for the health and pleasure it brings to their lives.”