We’re all aging, there’s no way to get around that. But, we can age gracefully and healthfully by taking on daily healthy habits such as staying physically active, sleeping restfully, staying socially active, and eating healthy foods. Focusing on nutritious foods will help maintain a healthy body and protect against various illnesses. Use the following tips to eat a nutritious diet for optimal aging.
- Focus on fruits and vegetables. The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend adults should consume 1.5–2 cup-equivalents of fruits and 2–3 cup-equivalents of vegetables daily. Include a vegetable and/or fruit at every meal or snack and focus on making half of your plate fruits and vegetables.
- Control your portions. Overloading your plate, taking on seconds and eating until you feel stuffed can lead to excess calories, fat, and cholesterol. Typical portion sizes have drastically grown throughout the years and it’s important to listen to your body’s fullness signals.
- Everything in moderation. It’s important that you eat healthy foods most of the time, but it’s ok to treat yourself every once in a while. Focus on those fruits and vegetables first to make sure you’re reaching the recommended amounts and don’t allow junk food to take the place of foods your body needs to thrive.
- Drink enough water. Every system in your body needs water. If you don’t drink enough water, you may become dehydrated which can leave you feeling sluggish or tired. Severe dehydration can lead to confusion and changes in heart rate. Although fluid intake varies from person to person, on average, you should drink enough fluid that you rarely feel thirsty and produce colorless or light-yellow urine.
- Say NO to sodium. Reduce your daily sodium intake by keeping the salt shaker off the table, eat less processed foods, choose foods that have “low sodium,” “reduced sodium,” or “sodium free” labels, cook at home more, and pay attention to condiments.
- Consume less sugar. There are many dangers of including added sugars in your diet such as tooth decay and adverse health effects such as obesity, lower HDL levels, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Added sugars are often hidden ingredients that are dense in calories and have zero nutrients. Reduce your added sugar intake by eating fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, limit candy, baked goods, and other sweet treats, opt for water instead of sugary drinks, sodas and sweet teas, and limit processed foods.
