Your Take Control of Your Eating Habits by Making Own Servings

Your Take Control of Your Eating Habits by Making Own Servings

Most peoples parents didn't teach them how to cook with nutrition in mind much past "each your vegetables". However, given the fact that now more than 60% of Americans are classified as obese and over 30% of American children it is time we figured this out before we end up like the people in Wall-E the movie.

The cooking process involves the following steps:
1. Planning
2. Collecting
3. Mixing/Adding
4. Distribution

Planning: The most popular way to plan a meal in America is to go to the refrigerator, open the door and grab what you 'feel' like eating. This method usually leads to chaotic eating behaviors that are less diverse in nutrients, less filling, and overall less healthy with more calories than intended.

The best thing to do is to plan your meals after for the next day after you have eaten dinner the night before. During this time period, you are not hungry, you are rational about what you need, and this is a time that you are very relaxed. To plan the meal you simply need to figure out the following, what is your daily caloric needs ( your doctor can help you with this or you can simply calculate your body weight x 10 and multiply this number by 1.2 if you are sedentary, 1.3 if you are active (construction worker, farmer,etc) and 1.4 if you are actively partiicpating in sports (football, soccer, hiking, running etc). This calculation is to maintain your current weight. You can also do this by going to http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-calculator/NU00598, the mayoclinic calorie calculator. You may have to add calories if you did additional exercise, and those values can be obtained by going to this table http://www.nutribase.com/exercala.htm.

Once you know how much you need to eat write that down. Now make a list of all of the stuff you want to eat the next day. Now decide how many calories are going to be in each meal. So for a 200 lb guy he needs 2400 calories to maintain his weight without any extra exercise. So he can decide that he is going to eat 3 meals and 2 snacks. Divide 2400 by 4 and you get 600 cals. This gives 600 cals per meal, plus 600 for the two snacks or 300 cals per snack. You can then mix up the foods you desire to approximately match that goal for each meal you will have.

Collecting: Make a list of everything that you need, go to the store and get it, then when you go to make your meal get everything out that you need ahead of time. This way you don't have to get back in the pantry and start to crave the peanut butter chocolate cheesecake that you have in there instead. So when you start to cook you will have everything you need.

Mixing:When you get a can of corn or green beans you really cant just cook one serving for yourself and put the rest back. You can't very well dish out one serving using a measuring cup, then get your potatoes with another measuring cup, then weigh your chicken on a scale and cut off the excess, then eat just enough strawberries to add up to a cup. This is to precise, too time consumeing, and will prevent you from eating healthy. Instead take the whole of something like a can of corn and cook the whole thing. Then divide it up into equal servings, even if that means more calories than the can says.

Distribution: A good example is a tuna casserole. There is calories in each can of tuna, calories in the base, calories in the veggies, calories in virtually everything you put in there. So instead of trying to make one part that has 3.5 calories match up with one that has 2.5, just add all the parts to a total calorie count. This could come to be 7,000 calories for a whole casserole, Then cut it to the desired serving size for the calories you want. So if you want 500 calorie servings, cut it into 14 pieces.

ALWAYS MAKE YOUR OWN SERVING SIZE! This gives you control.




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