Simple lifestyle changes help you live long

March 21, 2010 02:12 pm | Updated December 17, 2016 05:16 am IST - London

Slight changes in eating habits helps to improve long term health. Photo: Special Arrangement

Slight changes in eating habits helps to improve long term health. Photo: Special Arrangement

Forget crash diets and obsessive calorie counting. A new study shows that it takes only slight changes to your eating habits to improve your long term health.

Cut back on the number of times you shake the salt cellar or grind your salt mill. A healthy adult intake is 6 grams, so even the smallest reduction has an impact on your health.

Research shows that dropping your salt intake by as much as 3 grams a day would be enough to trigger a measurable fall in blood pressure, reducing your risk of stroke by 13 per cent and heart disease by 10 per cent, reported dailymail.co.uk.

Reduce sugar in your tea or coffee from two teaspoons to one and you could save yourself up to 30 grams of sugar a day. At 15 calories per teaspoon, that’s a cut of 32,000 calories a year.

Avoid products with the words ‘hydrogenated fat’ in the ingredients list - culprits include low-cost cakes, biscuits and pastries.

Studies show that eating even small amounts of trans-fats or unsaturated fat increases your risk of heart disease more than consuming any other food.

Instead of filling your plate with carbohydrates (pasta, rice, potato) and meat, first fill half the plate with salad or vegetables, then split the remaining half between carbohydrates and meat. Like this can cut calorie intake by 200 calories.

Peeling the skin off your chicken drumstick before you eat it will immediately cut out 4 grams of fat without any sense of deprivation.

Make the switch from high sugar fizzy drinks (cola contains eight teaspoons of sugar in every can) to water and you will be reducing your sugar intake by 40 grams of sugar every time.

Adding one more serving of vegetables a day may reduce your risk of breast cancer by 21 per cent.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.