Eating is hard, and in a quarantine situation restricting your ability to stay active and burn calories like you usually do, it only throws things more out of whack. So if you're having a difficult time there, you wouldn't be alone and you aren't doing a bad job. But good can always be better!
But if you want to improve in any area and you have the space in your life to work on diet, there's one thing most people don't do well that you can start doing easily! Health professionals agree that you need just 30 grams of fiber a day to enormously improve your health.
That's not an intimidating entire lifestyle change, it's a little tweak to maybe a part of your daily meal regimen, so you can do it almost without thinking about it, and the benefits will be hugely disproportionate to anything you might lose from changes to the status quo.
Fiber does a lot for you, even apart from giving you a good laugh remembering an old SNL commercial parody – such as preserving the protective lining of your stomach, and keeping it filled with good bacteria that breaks down what you put in there thoroughly! And naturally fiber helps you maintain regular bowel movements and reduce your risk of colon cancer or IBS. But the best gains you'll see under the hood will come in the form of a stronger immune system, as most of it resides right there in the gut!
But fiber doesn't just aid you in unseen internal ways, it also improves your ability to absorb vitamin C, which gives you healthier, glowing skin! So don't just do it because you know it's working, but because you know they'll know!
Higher fiber won't even require you to leave the cheap and tastes good aisles of your grocery store. You're going to love running headlong into a breakfast rich with fresh fruits such as oranges, apples, raspberries, and that dirt cheap miracle, the banana. One of any will give you ten percent of what you need if not more.
The rest of the day stays affordable and delicious. Carrots, broccoli, artichokes and more all take the baton from fruit handily, as do fiber-rich beans. You're going to love garbanzos. And you already love bread! A little whole grain bread and a bag of absolutely delicious pistachios or secret health food popcorn are liable to be just what puts you over the top for the day, and whoever lost their patience with popcorn?
Now, not all of the above foods come at minimal cost to you in other nutritional categories. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! First get yourself on the good fiber train, with handfuls of almonds here and there as a snack, with dinners that are more vegetables and beans than they are meat, with a certain amount of the bread you were told to ditch coming back!
Then when you're chugging along, look at where all the other nutrients are as a result of your high fiber ways. Some of them will require tweaking, and you'll be glad to do it! This was a feature and not a bug all along! The fiber brought along its own benefits and the push you'll be glad for to see the job all the way through. Enjoy eating well!
