PVCC Puma Press: April 2006

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	Photo by Amanda Jaskulski
	Grocery stores such as Sprouts offer healthy alternatives to favorite snacks.
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Cathy Martin is a full-time employee, parent and part-time student. She has been working to lose weight by exercising regularly and eating healthy meals. She struggles with making poor food choices when she is away from home and has been too busy to bring pre-made meals or snacks with her.

Tatum Voeller, who teaches the Healthy Eating Everyday class at PVCC offers this option, “Fresh fruit and veggies always make good affordable snacks.” When dining out, she recommends choosing whole grains and foods that have been baked, boiled, broiled or grilled as opposed to fried.

Building Blocks of A Healthy Diet

A balanced diet, Voeller says, “provides all the essential nutrient building blocks that our bodies need to function, build tissue and regulate chemical processes. These building blocks include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, minerals and vitamins.”

This is a diet based on the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid. The foundation of the pyramid is whole grains. The next level is fruits and vegetables. Low-fat dairy and lean meats are recommended in moderation. Fats (preferably unsaturated) and sweets should be used sparingly. The food pyramid also recommends 8–10 glasses of water and daily exercise.

Moderation is an important component in healthy eating, allowing all foods to fit into the diet. Voeller says, “We always think of the term diet with what we’re doing to lose weight. We feel we’re depriving ourselves. We need to shift our thinking into correlating the word diet with what we eat to sustain life.”

Eating a hamburger is not a diet buster. Choose the smallest burger and instead of teaming it with value-sized fries and a large soda, select a side salad with milk, orange juice, or water to drink. Use caution when ordering salads. Just because a salad is full of vegetables does not mean it is the healthiest option. Many of the gourmet salads offered now at fast-food restaurants use fried meats and high-caloric dressings.

Making Healthy Eating Work

McDonald's offers apple dippers in their Happy Meals. These are small packages with an apple and a small package of caramel sauce. This is the perfect size for a healthy snack. Here at PVCC, the Puma Café is offering more healthy options, including a daily vegetarian choice.

Student Ian Shaughnessy believes eating healthy has as much to do with having the right mentality as the desire and willpower to be consistent. With a full load of classes and a job on the side, Shaughnessy uses fruit, energy bars or just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to maintain his energy.

“A good friend of mine suggested bringing one of those Styrofoam coolers with me to school and leaving it in my car,” says Shaughnessy. “This way I can save money by making my own lunches and eat what I want to eat rather than what is available in the cafeteria.”

For Shaughnessy, healthy eating is about more than just looking good. “What is most important to me nutritionally is a diet that will help support a strong cardiovascular regimen.” The benefits of eating healthy far exceed the obvious obesity issues. Good nutrition provides energy, decreases the risk of some cancers, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

Losing Weight and Snacking

For those interested in losing weight, it is a matter of balance and awareness. “The recommended amount of weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week. There are 3,500 calories in one pound. This is why the most successful weight loss programs include an emphasis on exercise, along with a healthful diet. “By decreasing our caloric intake and increasing our caloric expenditure, we can more efficiently lose weight,” shares Voeller.

Martin, who has been focused on weight loss through diet and exercise, believes success is all about planning. She is learning to rotate meal menus every couple of weeks and uses her planner to plan ahead what preparation needs to happen for the next day’s meals.

When Martin has less time to spend on preparation, she keeps quick and easy meals available, such as veggie burgers, organic pizza, and couscous (a quick cooking, whole grain from Africa).

“When I cook a meal, I try to make enough so that we can enjoy leftovers the following day,” Martin says. Instead of simply making enough potatoes for that night’s meal, she usually boils roughly 1⁄2 bag of red potatoes and stores them in the refrigerator for later use in hash browns or to be sliced and warmed with spices. She makes enough rice for 3 to 4 meals. “I usually keep a couple types of fruits and vegetables on hand – apples, kiwi, pears. I also keep individual servings of applesauce when I’m on the go or don’t have time to cut up fruit.”

When snacks high in sugar are consumed, they may provide a burst of energy due to the body increasing its production of insulin. Within an hour, the body corrects for the spike in insulin, significantly decreasing production, essentially “crashing” and leaving a greater feeling of fatigue and a craving for more sugar.

Healthy snacks should include a carbohydrate and a protein. This serves as a time-release formula to prevent hunger for a longer period of time. Examples of this would be apples and almond butter, lean cheese and low-fat crackers, low-fat yogurt with fresh fruit, chocolate milk and a banana.