Nutrition is one of the factors that we do not always notice, but that has a huge impact on our health. The food that we choose to eat and timing when we do it play a crucial role. For instance, often when a person feels hungry, he/she does not pay much attention to food itself and its origin, but simply grabs whatever product is affordable and easy to get. By analisys essays empire the people face different health problems. I adopted a diet plan that caused some barriers, but resulted in positive upshots, impacted my behavior, and motivated me to imply other behavior changes.
A nutrition plan was designed at the beginning of the health improvement course implementation. According to the U. S. Department of Health & Human Service, a person of my age and sex who has a somewhat active or very active lifestyle requires 2600-3000 calories per day. Thus, I decided to follow 2700 Calorie Meal Plan created by Megan Mangano. My diet included six meals during each day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and three snacks. For instance, during the first day I had one banana, a toast with margarine, and cereal with skim milk for the breakfast. I ate one apple with spaghetti, salad, and pretzel twists for lunch. Dinner consisted of burrito and ice milk. Three snack during the day were crackers with peanut butter, sports bar, peanut butter cookies, and apple juice. All other days followed the same pattern, but with other courses. Each day I substituted coffee with juice or milk. Moreover, I had dishes with fish: tuna during the second and ninth days and salmon during the sixth day. I also ate meet, such as beef, turkey, pork, and chicken (days two, four, six, seven, and nine). Despite the fact, that this plan included such dished as burrito, sandwiches, and pizza, I decided not to eat them in fast food restaurants or cafes, but to cook everything from the ingredients I bought. Moreover, I added more vegetables and fruits to my diet such as bananas, apples, oranges, and strawberries. As a result, every day I had 2700 calories: 135-338 grams of carbs, 60-151 grams of fat, and 135-338 grams of protein (Mangano). Thus, a well-planned diet plan was adopted.
Several barriers aroused during the health improvement course, such as extra time spent on grocery shopping and food preparation, lack of cooking skills, and enthusiasm loss after the first several days. Those obstacles caused apathy, laziness, and motivation drop. Thoughts to quit the course appeared around day four. In order to overcome this situation, I started to write a list of ingredients and food I needed for several days to avoid going to the supermarket every time I needed something. I asked my mother to help me with shopping, and teach me some cooking basics as well. Moreover, I changed my attitude towards this course by treating it not only as an assignment, but as a personal challenge. In case I continue the plan, I will try to establish a certain routine with particular days when I would buy supplies, and spend some extra time to improve my cooking skills that would reduce the duration of food preparation in the future. Thus, despite the fact that I faced some barriers I managed to deal with them.
At the same time, many positive outcomes appeared because of the behavior modification plan implementation. First, as time showed, closed diet was wisely drawn and the amount of food and nutrition was enough to feel comfortable and without any esurience. Second, the biggest advantages from the health changes prospective were the reduction of coffee and junk food addiction level. For instance, I began to feel full after eating homemade meal, rather than in times when I was eating French fries and drinking Coca-Cola. As a result, if I continued to follow my diet plan, I would pursue eating healthy, made from natural products food, and minimize fast food to the utmost level. Thus, behavior modification plan helped me realize the value and real taste of good food.
Together with various current positive impacts, gained experience can have a strong influence on my future health behavior. In general, during this short period I became calmer and less anxious. As a result, if I continue eating healthy food and gradually stop drinking coffee, I will become more energetic, relying on vitamins, not caffeine, and tranquil in the future. Moreover, I have learned that in critical times when I want to give up or feel too much frustrated, I need to keep going despite all destructions. In such moments, it is even better to ask someone, for example my mother, to become my “inspector” and check whether I really follow my plan. After few days those negative feelings will disappear, but a strong healthy food eating habit will remain in the future. Furthermore, I can share this experience with my friends and family, and help them to start healthy diet, and overcome their challenges as well. Thus, my future health behavior can improve if I continue following my nutrition health modification plan.
This health improvement course inspired me to learn more about organic food. In the future I plan to pay more attention to how certain vegetables and fruits are growth that plays important role for me. Moreover, I would like to try growing some vegetables by myself, for example, planting tomatoes as for the beginning. Such actions will not only help to support my current diet plan, but I will also be sure that products I use for cooking do not contain herbicides. Thus, I can start growing my own ecological products.
Diet plan implementation was my health improvement course. Nevertheless, I faced such barriers as laziness, lack of time for shopping and cooking skills that I managed to overcome. At the same time, several positive outcomes appeared: the absence of hunger, reduction of the amount of unhealthy food in my diet. Moreover, if I pursue this healthy nutrition in the future I probably can become a healthier person and can try to grow my own vegetables.