Watercress
You’re more likely to find this member of the cabbage family as a garnish instead of the star it is, at least nutritionally speaking. It’s packed with phytonutrients and antioxidants, both of which help prevent disease and slow aging.
One of these is beta-carotene, a type of carotenoid. These compounds help prevent eye diseases and some cancers. Your body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A.
Watercress also has fiber and vitamin K. Just 2 cups of it give you about a third of the vitamin C adults need each day. And cruciferous vegetables have sulfur-based compounds known as glucosinolates that help your body fight off infection and cancer.
Like all cruciferous veggies, watercress helps detox, Moss says. It’s especially good for cleansing the liver.
healthy diet
🍎 Health Hack ~ Pumpkin Seeds Are a Healthy Choice
Pumpkin seeds . . . are one of the healthiest seeds to add to your daily diet,” Moss says. She recommends them hulled, eaten raw or gently toasted. They’re a rich source of magnesium and zinc, two minerals many people don’t get enough of. Magnesium helps relax the body and relieve everything from tight muscles to anxiety to headaches to constipation. Zinc is a key player for your immune system, and it boosts testosterone (which can help improve your libido).
🍎 Health Hack ~ Tips for Healthy Eating Out
Tips for Eating Out
- Choose foods that are steamed, broiled, baked, roasted, poached, or lightly sautéed or stir-fried.
- Ask for food without butter, gravy, or sauces.
- Ask for salad dressing on the side and use only some of it.
- Pick drinks without added sugar, such as water, milk, and unsweetened tea or coffee. Order regular coffee or tea instead of high-calorie specialty drinks.
- Trim visible fat from meats and remove skin from poultry.
- Share your meal or take half home for later.
- Choose fruit or another healthy option for dessert.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Start Seeing Rainbows 🌈
“Your outlook—having a sense of optimism and purpose—seems to be predictive of health outcomes,” says Dr. Laura Kubzansky, professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Kubzansky has studied the health effects of several forms of psychological well-being. She has found that emotional vitality—characterized by enthusiasm, hopefulness, engagement in life, and the ability to face life’s stresses with emotional balance—is associated with a substantially reduced risk of heart attack and stroke.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Eating & Exercise – Keys to Feeling Great
Eating healthy is important to not only your physical health, but your mental well-being too. Incorporating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy foods, and lean meats, poultry, and fish into your diet can help you stay healthy and energized. Along with exercising regularly and getting enough sleep, eating a well-balanced diet can do wonders for your mental well-being.
🍎 Health Hack ~ How to Choose the Best Kale
Choose smaller-leaved kale for tenderness and mild flavor, especially if you plan to eat the greens raw. Coarse, oversized leaves are tough. Look for moist, crisp, unwilted kale, unblemished by tiny holes, which indicate insect damage. The leaves should not be yellowed or brown. Kale stems are edible, so check to be sure that this part of the plant is also in good condition.
🍎 Health Hack ~ 10 Tips to Live a Longer Life
Tips for a Longer Life
No matter what your age, you have the power to change many of the variables that influence how long you live, and how active and vital you feel in your later years. Actions you can take to increase your odds of a longer and more satisfying life span are really quite simple:
- Don’t smoke.
- Enjoy physical and mental activities every day.
- Eat a healthy diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, and fruits, and substitute healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats for unhealthy saturated fats and trans fats.
- Take a daily multivitamin, and be sure to get enough calcium and vitamin D.
- Maintain a healthy weight and body shape.
- Challenge your mind. Keep learning and trying new activities.
- Build a strong social network.
- Follow preventive care and screening guidelines.
- Floss, brush, and see a dentist regularly.
- Ask your doctor if medication can help you control the potential long-term side effects of chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, osteoporosis, or high cholesterol.
Source: HarvardHealthBeat
🍎 Health Hack ~ Small Steps Yield Big Results
THINK SMALL
Often the biggest deterrent to improving health is feeling overwhelmed by all the available advice and research. Try to focus first on one small, seemingly inconsequential, unhealthy habit and turn it into a healthy, positive habit. If you’re in the habit of eating as soon as you get home at night, instead, keep walking shoes in the garage or entryway and take a quick spin around the block before going inside. If you have a can of soda at lunchtime every day, have a glass of water two days a week instead. Starting with small, painless changes helps establish the mentality that healthy change is not necessarily painful change. It’s easy to build from here by adding more healthy substitutions.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Skip the Diet! Yikes!
Don’t Go On a Diet
Diets are notoriously ineffective and rarely work well in the long term.
In fact, dieting is one of the strongest predictors for future weight gain (104Trusted Source).
Instead of going on a diet, try adopting a healthier lifestyle. Focus on nourishing your body instead of depriving it.
Weight loss should follow as you transition to whole, nutritious foods.
Source: HealthLine
🍎 Health Hack ~ Choose Real, Whole Foods
Eat whole, real foods.
Make it your goal to have most of your nourishment come from unprocessed, real foods that are as close to the source as possible. What does that mean? Check out the ingredients. If you are eating a handful of almonds for a snack, the only ingredient should be just that: almonds! Whole foods fill your body with more vitamins and minerals, the nutrition we need to stay healthy on the inside.
