Variety in Your Diet

When you are trying to eat right, some concepts to keep in mind are balance, variety, moderation, and common sense. I'd like to focus on variety today. Variety is a beautiful thing. If you are trying to eat healthy foods, but all you eat is tuna fish, carrots, and apples every day you will soon burn out and tire of the same thing. Having options and several choices keeps eating exciting and helps you avoid the monotony.

I frequently give my clients a sheet with a variety of foods and actually give them an assignment to see how many of those foods they can eat over the next few weeks. They are all healthy choices and this exercise helps them to avoid feeling like they are on a restricted diet or like they are depriving themselves. Another way to address the variety issue is to try to see how many different colored vegetables you can eat during the week. Aside from color, different flavors and textures also contribute to variety.

Although it is a good thing to cut back or eliminate unhealthy foods, diets that try to eliminate entire food groups or basic macronutirents are not wise. I think people are more likely to achieve a healthy diet when they are educated and encouraged to expand their food choices and try new foods.

As much as I promote variety, it does have a down side. It is proven that the more kinds of food a person has available to them, the more likely they are to overeat. That makes sense. If you were at an all you can eat Macaroni and Cheese bar you might have a couple servings, but if you go to Chuck a Rama or Golden Coral, you could easily eat 4 or 5 plates of food since they serve so many different kinds of food that you may want to sample.

If you are getting tired of eating the same thing then it's probably time to spice up your diet with some variety. When was the last time you had kiwi, lamb, plums, raspberries, artichokes, sweet potatoes, split peas, figs, sprouts, grapefruit, cracked wheat, or shrimp?  As you attempt to add more variety to your diet, just make sure that you choose healthy foods and that you watch your serving sizes.