Chapter 3: The Baby Boomer’s Diet
Here’s an exercise for you.
What did you eat this morning or today, for that matter? Did you eat a well balanced diet that’s full of whole grains, lean proteins, vegetables and fruits?
Or, was your breakfast a cup of coffee and maybe a bagel, loaded with cream cheese of course?
You are what you eat. The Standard
American Diet is a term that’s been coined to describe the fast food crazy,
greasy, fatty and high sugared diet that most Americans eat. Even if you live on the other side of the
planet, chances are good that you aren’t eating a diet that’s rich in the foods
that are important to your aging process.
In fact, the foods that you are eating that fall into that type of diet are what are playing the largest single part in killing you prematurely. As a Baby Boomer, you have plenty of life still left in you and your diet is the perfect place to begin making some serious changes. Just look at what it is doing to you!
If you have a larger midsection to your body, then you have a high risk of having a heart attack due to heart disease. Just a few extra pounds are all it takes.
If you consume a diet that is rich in salt, you are destroying your kidneys as well as some of the other organs in your body.
If you are eating fatty foods, you’re killing you heart by suffocating it under layers of cholesterol.
What Diet Should I Follow?
If all of this scares you, which it should, you may be considering a diet. Yes, a diet does sound like a good idea but the problem with them is that it is ultimately impossible to stay on that diet for your lifetime. That leads to the potential for you not to follow it for long, allowing virtually none of the important benefits to come through to you. That’s not what you want.
Diets that go from one extreme to the next are everywhere you look. Those that facing a diet that is high in protein are still putting their heart’s at risk because of the increase cholesterol there. Those that are following a low fat diet are doing the opposite. They are not giving the body enough protein to build muscle mass, which actually helps you to burn fat faster.
Because diets are so extreme, they rarely work for people that are facing these conditions.
But, you don’t have to face these problems to be able to gain the benefits that you need. In fact, the most basic of diets is one of the best ones to follow for your health and well being.
Enter The Baby Boomer’s Perfect Diet
Now, instead of thinking of this as a diet, think of it as a better way to eat. It is not something you’ll ever come off of and it is not something that you should throw to the side. It is a way of life and although there are some things you will have to give up, it is still one of the easiest diets to follow.
In fact, if you do decide to eat something that you shouldn’t, if you just go back to eating well from there out, you’ll still be okay. It is all about controlling how much of the bad stuff you take in and making sure that the good stuff is what comes in more often than anything else.
Here’s what you should be doing. Split up the foods that you eat into a pie graph. 50 percent of what you eat should be good carbohydrates. The next 25 percent of the foods you eat should be lean proteins. The final 25 percent should go to fats.
This way of eating is enjoyable and it’s easy to follow. Here are some more specific points that you should install into your eating plan.
1. The carbohydrates that you consume should be made up of mostly fruits and vegetables.
2. The proteins that you eat should be from beans, tofu and other types of plant sources. About 1/3 of the protein you eat should come from animal meat and then it must be lean.
3. For fats, you want to obtain this from good fats such as olive oils and nuts instead of fats that come from animals. Look for poly and mono saturated fats for this section.
That’s it. You pick the foods and as long as they fit within this diet regimen, you know you are working on creating a healthy and anti aging diet that will propel you to health and wellness.
When To Eat Matters
It should be mentioned that you shouldn’t sit down to a large meal,
either. Instead, you should be eating
four, five or even six smaller meals per day.
One of the most important things that you need to “get over” when it comes to the food part of your life is that food doesn’t have to be the center of attention. You need to disconnect the feeling of needing food to make you feel comfortable and relaxed. Learning this will be a requirement because you need to detach from the mentality of sitting down to a large meal.
If you have problems going from eating four to six small meals per day, try to add a fruit into your middle periods. This can help to stabilize your blood sugars to help you to feel better.
Getting Sugar Out
One of the key methods to improving your life for the future is to look at sugars. Refined sugar should be avoided at all costs. Why is sugar so bad for you? When you consume sugars, you are increasing the body’s production of a substance that is called cortisol. That is a hormone that actually speeds up the aging process and can lead you to aging faster.
Now, to remove junk food from your body, you should start with the sweets. You don’t want to excessively eat foods like junk food. You also want to cut out the soda that you drink as that too can add refined sugar to your diet that you simply shouldn’t have.
If you are craving something that is sweet, look towards healthy, whole fruits. Low sugar is better, but no sugar foods are even better for you.
Your Ideal Baby Boomer Weight
One thing that is a major difference from most other diets and weight loss plans is that with the Baby Boomer’s Diet, you need to install a diet that allows you to drop weight. You should be looking to weigh about five to ten percent less than what you have been told your ideal weight is. That’s not to say that you should starve yourself, but dropping these extra pounds will encourage a great deal of benefit in your body.
Here’s a method to figuring this out that can help be a guide for you.
Women: The weight that you want to follow should be 100 pounds for your first five feet of height. Then, add on five pounds for every inch taller that you are.
Men: The weight that you want to follow should be 106 pounds for the first five feet that you are high and then an additional six pounds for every inch after that point of height.
Are you worried that you can’t follow this type of diet? Do you think that it may be too restrictive of you? Remember that although this lifestyle is something that you should follow, that doesn’t mean that it should be strictly followed without one falter.
If it’s your birthday, sure you want a piece of cake. Having a small piece of cake won’t hurt you if you go back to your healthy Baby Boomer diet afterwards. If you have a sweet tooth, satisfy that sweet tooth with a piece of fruit instead of candy.
As we mentioned, there is no aspect of your life that is more important than improving your body’s physical condition. As you will see in the next chapter, it is important to incorporate a healthy exercise regimen as well. This coupled with a healthy diet will deliver for you the optimal health and wellness for years to come.
It is essential for you to make these diet changes so that your body doesn’t take in the wrong things. You will see that if you adjust your diet to this type of plan that you will begin to feel good quickly.