Nutrition

What you choose to eat can contribute to how stressed you feel. Many people nibble or binge on sweets or junk food in response to stress. While this type of eating can be a temporary distraction from your problems, it does nothing to manage or reduce stress in the long run. In fact, it often increases stress, especially if you get angry at yourself for overeating or putting on extra pounds.

A sensible approach to nutrition, like the one detailed in the Food Guide Pyramid below, can help decrease the amount of stress in your life. Eating a healthful variety of whole grains, breads, cereals, fruits, vegetables, dairy and protein foods fortifies your mind and body, making you more resistant to stress buildup.

Be sure to drink eight or more glasses of water each day.

If you already eat healthfully, keep up the good work. If you are like many Americans, however, you probably eat a diet that is too high in fat, sugar, cholesterol, and calories, and too low in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and complex carbohydrates.

To improve your eating habits, eat more of the foods at the base of the pyramid and less of the foods (fats and sugars) at the top. Also, strive for five! That means try to consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. You will be healthier and better able to cope with stress when your body is properly nourished.

Don't Skip Meals

Skipping meals causes low blood sugar, which increases stress hormones and makes a person feel low, irritable, and not able to cope well with stress. People who eat regular meals and limit their intake of typical snack foods enjoy better nutrition and better health. They are also fortified to handle stress better.

Start each day with a good breakfast: for example, whole-grain cereal and/or toast, low-fat milk or yogurt, and fruit. To meet the demands of a busy day, the body and mind need the required nutrients and energy breakfast provides. People who skip breakfast experience low energy levels later in the morning. They also get upset or frustrated more easily and have more accidents than their well-nourished peers.

Eating regular meals every day is a good health habit. People who skip meals often snack throughout the day, and typical snack foods offer few nutritional benefits. Most are high in calories, fat, sugar, and salt, and low in nutrients. If you are hungry between meals, choose healthy snacks (fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, etc.).

Drink Plenty of Water

Water has many vital functions. For example, water helps regulate body temperature and deliver nutrients to all cells. Water also helps transport wastes out of your body.

The average healthy adult excretes 80 ounces of water daily through normal bodily functions such as perspiration and urination. In order to balance things out, you need to replace that amount of water every day.

To replenish the water in your body, drink eight or more 8-ounce glasses of water each day. That amount of water, combined with the water you get from the foods you eat, should keep the fluids in your body balanced.

Drink more than eight glasses of water if you are

• working out strenuously
• exposed to extremely hot or cold climates
• sick (fever, vomiting, diarrhea)
• pregnant or nursing

These conditions use up more of the body's water supply.

A good way to tell if you are getting enough water is to check the color of your urine. If it is almost clear, you are probably getting enough water. If your urine is dark in color, you should probably drink more water.

Avoid or Limit Caffeine and Alcohol

The chemical effects of caffeine and alcohol make you more prone to stress. Some people drink caffeinated beverages to fight fatigue. However, the best thing you can do to fight fatigue is to get some old-fashioned, quality sleep. Some people think alcohol can help them relax, reduce stress, or to stop worrying about something. However, alcohol is a depressant, which can increase stress and make you feel even worse!

Don't rely on caffeine or alcohol to make you feel better. If you choose to consume either, do so in moderation: no more than one or two drinks in any one day (and not every day). Don't drink alcohol at all if you are pregnant or breast-feeding, trying to get pregnant, taking medications, operating machinery, driving a vehicle, or unable to control the amount you drink.

Maintain a Healthy Weight

Being significantly underweight, overweight, or obese can bring more stress into your life, especially if you are constantly worried about your appearance. These conditions increase certain health risks, such as heart disease, which could further compound the stress in your life!

Some people who are underweight diet and exercise vigorously because they have an intense fear of gaining weight. These people may have an eating disorder called anorexia nervosa. People with anorexia often have a distorted body image. They think they are too fat (or that certain body parts are too fat), even though they often weigh 15 percent or more below the lowest recommended weight for their height. Eating disorders such as anorexia can lead to many serious health risks including emaciation, malnutrition, heart damage, and early death. If you or someone you know might have an eating disorder, get immediate help from a doctor or treatment specialist.

Being overweight increases the risk for high blood pressure, high blood fat levels, and high glucose levels. Being excessively overweight or obese puts you at high risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and certain cancers. The good news is that a modest weight loss — as little as 10 to 20 pounds — can greatly improve your overall health if you are overweight.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, avoid fast weight loss schemes and fad diets — they rarely produce long-term results, and they can wreak havoc on your health. Adopting good eating and physical activity habits for life — not dieting — will help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

A safe, realistic goal is losing one-half to one pound per week. One pound equals 3,500 calories. If you ate 250 fewer calories than you needed and burned 250 extra calories by being more active each day, you would save 500 calories. In one week, you would accumulate 3,500 calories, resulting in a weight loss of one pound.

Additional Tips for Better Nutrition

Limit saturated fat and cholesterol. Eating foods low in saturated fat and cholesterol reduces the risk for clogged arteries, heart attack, stroke, and certain cancers. Hydrogenated and trans fats (vegetable oils changed into solid fats such as hard stick margarine and shortening) are also damaging to the arteries. 

A good way to reduce the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet is to reduce the amount of animal products you eat. There is no saturated fat or cholesterol in plant foods such as legumes, fruits, and vegetables. Also, limit your use of butter, hard stick margarine, cream, half and half, gravies, and creamy salad dressings, all of which are high in saturated fat. Learn to read food labels. You might find there is a lot of "hidden" fat in many of the bakery products and processed foods you eat. In general, try to keep your total fat intake below 30 percent of your daily calories and your saturated fat intake below 10 percent.

Get plenty of fiber. Fiber helps protect against cancer and other serious diseases. Experts recommend consuming between 20 to 30 grams of dietary fiber per day. You can increase your fiber intake by eating brown rice and whole-grain breads and cereals instead of white rice, white bread, and refined and sugarcoated cereals. Centering some of your meals around legumes (peas, beans, garbanzos, lentils, split peas, soybeans, etc.) will also boost your fiber intake. Beans are the highest source of fiber of any group of foods. Also, eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables every day. Raw or cooked, they have the same amount of fiber.

Remember to drink extra water when you increase your fiber intake to aid digestion and prevent constipation.

Avoid too much sugar. When sugary foods are eaten, the blood sugar level rises quickly, then falls just as quickly causing a feeling of fatigue or irritability. For better stress management, limit the amount of sugar and refined foods in your diet. Read labels carefully because many prepared foods contain sugar. For example, did you know that ketchup and most canned foods contain sugar? The sooner sugar appears in the ingredients list, the more sugar in the product.

Sugar has many aliases. If you see the names below on the ingredients list, the product contains sugar. (Note: there are many more aliases; this list is just a sampling.)

• brown sugar
• cane sugar
• corn sugar
• corn syrup
• dextrose
• fructose
• glucose
• honey
• lactose
• malt
• maltose
• maple syrup
• molasses
• sucrose
• sugar

Most natural foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, contain low or moderate amounts of sugar. These foods are better nutritional choices for good stress management and good health.

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