Here come the veggies!

It won't be much longer until the freshly-grown fruits and vegetables start appearing around here. I can't wait. Fresh vine-grown tomatoes are the stuff of dreams. Throw in some okra, some carrots, some green beans, mix it all up and call it a meal.

Guidelines recommend we eat at least two cups of fruit and two-and-a-half cups of veggies every day. That's a minimum. A serving is about a half-cup, so it may sound like a lot of fruits and veggies but it's not. I like to find what's in season in the produce isle and fill my grocery cart. Although, bananas are so convenient, I almost always have them around. A big banana is almost a cup when it's sliced so there's two servings there.

Remember that exercise is so important in a healthy lifestyle. Combine exercise with plenty of fruits and vegetables and watch the healthy results happen!

What better time of year to begin improving a healthy lifestyle than now? What better time to begin than today?

Go do it! Now!

Spring is (almost) in the air!

“I see daffodils.....”

Couldn’t stay inside this weekend. The weather’s great. The sky is blue, mas o menos, and I’m ready to get my bike tuned up and hit the roads.

I also made some oatmeal cookies. I make healthy cookies but they are high calorie, as most cookies are. I keep the ingredients simple. I substitute not-so-healthy ingredients with healthy ones when I can. I figure if I’m going to have cookies I may as well make them with ingredients I can pronounce rather than buying some cookies with a dozen ingredients I can’t even begin to pronounce.

I try to stay really active, so I’m lucky that I don’t really have to count calories (yet). I know when I’ve had enough to eat and I stop. A lot of people can’t do that, for a variety of reasons. Food means a lot of things to a lot of people.

Type II diabetics really have to count their calories, and their carbohydrates. Someone wrote the question, “I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last month. I’m having difficulty understanding how many carbs and sugar I can have each day. I’m finding that nearly everything contains carbs and sugar! Can you help me with this?”

The American Diabetes Association (http://www.diabetes.org/) has great information on choosing the right amount of carbs in a daily diet. For example, a good place to start is around 45-55 grams of carbs per meal. Some foods are really high carbohydrate, so special caution should be given to breads, cereals, rice, and crackers. Simple carbs (think: candies, pies, cakes, cookies) can pack some punch with carbs, so really watch out for those.

Here’s some specifics: there are about 15 grams of carbohydrate in one slice of bread, or 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/3 cup of rice, or 1/4 of a large baked potato.

Another approach to counting carbs is through food labels. Check out the labels on store-bought food and notice the serving size and then the grams of total carbohydrate. This gives a quick count of how many carbs per serving can be consumed to stay within a given range.

Carbohydrates and proteins and fats are part of a healthy diet. Attention should be paid to all three, so, for diabetics, being mindful of counting carbs is an intelligent approach to healthy living, but don’t overlook the necessity of having proteins and fats in the diet as well.

Now, get moving!