Clubname Fitness

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The 4 Steps of the Better Choices Diet:

1. Make a daily record of everything you eat.

Making a record of your diet is a very tedious task if you're using paper and pencil, but it's very easy to do with the Running Total feature of ND's Pantry. If you aren't familiar with the Pantry, please read ND's Pantry Help page, and learn how to use the Running Total in the section labeled "Analyzing Your Total Consumption".

2. Determine which foods contribute the most Calories to your diet.

The primary focus of the Better Choices Diet is to gradually replace some of the foods that you now eat with other foods that are more supportive of your goals. It makes sense to start with those foods that are contributing the most Calories to your diet, since this is most likely to have the greatest positive impact on your progress. This step is automated by the Pantry's Running Total. The Total Consumption report that it generates includes a listing of all foods that you consumed, ranked by the number of Calories that each supplied to your diet.

3. Make Better Choice substitutions for those foods.

Ratings and Fullness Factors are automatically calculated for each food on the Total Consumption report. Each listing also includes links to Better Choice substitutions. Click on the link that matches your goal (weight loss or weight gain), and explore the resulting list of foods. It's not important to choose foods that appear highest on the list. Simply choose any of these foods that you would enjoy eating.

4. Repeat.

Your goal is to gradually evolve your diet to include more nutritious and filling foods and less unhealthy and unsatisfying foods. Over time, as you incorporate more of these foods into your diet, the total Calories that you consume will drop, and the overall nutrient density of your meals will increase.

Plus a Few Important Notes:

• Keep sight of your goal. Don't get so caught up in trying to get better Ratings and FF's that you lose sight of your primary goal: you're trying to reduce the number of Calories that you consume. If you lower your total daily Calories while getting at least 100% of the FDAÍs Daily Values for all essential nutrients, you've succeeded.



• Be realistic. Better Choices substitutions are scientifically chosen to benefit the average individual. Your own response to these foods may be better or worse than average. Therefore, you must make your own determination of how well a food works for you. The fact that one particular food is rated higher than another by Better Choices should not give you cause to eat it indiscriminately. Better Choices is about you making smarter choices and learning to control your diet.



• Drink plenty of water. ND's Rating system gives water a relatively low rating, because it contains neither Calories nor any major nutrients. Please realize, however, that water itself is a very important nutrient. You'll feel better and your weight will be easier to manage if you drink plenty of water.



• Don't try too hard. One of the most attractive benefits of the Better Choices Diet is that it allows you to more comfortably consume fewer Calories. If you have constant hunger and/or food cravings while on this plan, then youÍre probably changing your diet too much or too quickly. YouÍll have more success if you make smaller, more gradual changes.



• Every little bit helps. There is no need to completely eliminate the foods that you love. You can make progress simply by making a Better Choices substitution for a portion of what you eat. For example, replacing the five chocolate chip cookies that you want to eat with a spinach salad would improve your diet, but could leave you craving chocolate chip cookies. A more productive choice might be to eat the spinach salad plus just one of those cookies. If the bulk of your meal is comprised of foods that fill you up, youÍre likely to consume fewer Calories overall.