YMCA Healthy Living Magazine, powered by n4 food and health Winter 2017 | Page 10

GLORIA CABRERA, APD
Gloria is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and qualified personal trainer, who loves
food, nutrition, cooking, fitness, and helping others improve their health. She works in
private practice helping clients with weight management, pre and post surgery weight
loss, and chronic health conditions (e.g. diabetes, high cholesterol, irritable bowel
syndrome). Find out more about Gloria at www.nutritionsavvy.com.au
FOUR-WEEK
HEALTHY HABIT
CHALLENGE
Nutrition and exercise expert Gloria Cabrera provides a four-week wellness challenge.
etting healthy and fit doesn’t just happen overnight.
It can take many attempts to cement new healthy
habits. The good news is, even if your newfound
habit feels a bit shaky at first, persistence will ensure you stay
on track. Just like athletes need to train to become
champions, you need to continually strive to achieve
success.
G
To help you get started, we’ve come up with four healthy
habit challenges for you to focus on, over the next four
weeks. Work on changing one habit for one week, and then
move on to change another habit in the following week. After
you’ve attempted all four, go back to the first, and work your
way through them all again. Revisiting your habits will help
you achieve results.
1
Boost your nutrition
HABIT
Despite their lack of popularity, vegetables
are essential for a healthy body and weight.
They provide vitamins, minerals, antioxidants
and fibre in a low calorie package. According
to the National Health Survey: First Results (2014-2015), only
seven per cent of Australians aged over 18 years, met the
guidelines for recommended serves of vegetables (i.e. five to
six serves per day). One serve of vegetables could be any of
the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
½ cup cooked green or orange vegetables
½ cup cooked dried or canned beans, peas or lentils
1 cup green leafy or raw salad vegetables
½ cup sweet corn
½ medium potato or other starchy vegetables
1 medium tomato
GOAL:
Include a variety of vegetables in your daily diet,
especially non-starchy varieties. Your goal is to increase your
vegetable intake (especially green, orange and raw salad
vegetables) by an extra one to two serves per day.
To achieve this, take a look at your diet and assess your
average daily serves of vegetables. Next, look for
opportunities to add in extra serves of vegetables. For
example, if you have eggs for breakfast, add in some tomato,
mushrooms and spinach; or add some salad to your lunch.
For morning or afternoon tea, have some vegetable sticks
and salsa, or snack on cherry tomatoes.
2
HABIT
Keep hydrated and choose water
for your fluids
Your body consists of over
60 to 70 per cent fluid, so
keeping up your liquid
intake is essential. Fluid helps maintain
the health of your body’s cells; it keeps
the bloodstream liquid enough to flow
through blood vessels, helps eliminate
the by-products of the body’s
metabolism, regulates your body’s
temperature through sweating, and it
prevents constipation – just to name a
few! And while many beverages
contribute to fluid intake, the best option
for optimal hydration is water, which has the added
benefit of being calorie free.
Recommended fluid intake varies depending on age, gender
and health, but on average, healthy adults need between 2
and 3.5 litres per day. This includes all fluids consumed, and
even fluids in food. Slightly more fluids are needed in hot
weather or if someone is very active or has a very physically
demanding job.
While most fluids can contribute to your daily fluid intake,
water is the best option and should, therefore, make up most
10
YMCA HEALTHY LIVING MAGAZINE WINTER 2017