Benefits of Healthy Morning and Dinner Routine

The Importance of Healthy Foods –

Recently, we visited Kerala, which is famous for its Ayurvedic healing treatments and Organic produce, apart from the natural beauty it has. While, I got myself indulged in Shirodhara, which was one of the best body and soul rejuvenating session, I had a good chance to interact with the centre manager. He himself was an Ayurvedic doctor and propmpty shared some really great insights with me. While our lives in metro cities are too different, the air we breathe, the foods we eat are not pure and organic. We really need to strive to attain a healthy life and that begins with healthy eating habits.

5 Healthy food/habits, we as a family, incorporated after visiting Ayurvedic centre in Kerala :

1. Turmeric Water :

We all are very well aware of the benefits of turmeric as in, being a great antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and even antibacterial. For this we usually add a pinch of it in the foods to get the benefits. But drinking a glass of lukewarm turmeric water(detox water) daily will have added benefits to your health. Adding a pinch of black pepper to this enhances curcumin’s absorption in the body.

What all we need is, add a pinch of turmeric in a glass of water while it is being heated. Let it cool, add black pepper, honey(optional) and start your day with this booster cleansing water.

Benefits of Turmeric water :

• It reduces the risk of cancer
• Removes toxins from the body
• Reduces the risk of the diabetes and maintain sugar levels.
• Helps treating arthritis
• Keeps the cold and flu viruses at bay and many more

Have a glass of turmeric water daily and start off a healthy regime.

2. Never skip your breakfast :

Well, we all might be hearing this from our moms, but our hectic lives as we juggle personal and profession world often leaves us with negligence towards our own self. But mind it, if you skip your breakfast you are bound to munch many calories till the time you eat your lunch. And if not, you are sure to intake more calories for lunch and dinner. This would result in excess storage of fat and cholesterol.

Having a nutritious filling breakfast (nuts, protein, fruit) keeps you energized and in turn helps you in weight loss, prevents incidents of heart diseases(reduces LDL cholesterol), reduces diabetes risk. It fastens your metabolism which helps in burning more calories throughout the day.

3. Steamed Food in Breakfast :

There has been quite a debate over the steamed food and its health benefits. Till few days back, I rarely had steamed food in my breakfast, but now I have a steamer and I try to cook some type of steam food for breakfast and lunch for the whole family.

Benefits of Steamed food :

• It retains the nutritional value of various vitamins, water soluble and cancer fighting compounds in vegetables. Also, did you know that 90% of the antioxidants are preserved when steamed food is eaten.
• Absence of Oil in cooking, and hence completely healthy and fat free way to start the day.
• Softens the fibres in various foods and hence various plant and animal based foods become easily digestible by our bodies.
• Natural flavours are retained since no gas and oil cooking is involved.
• Food remains moist and fresh, also it saves the cooking time.

With these health benefits and me being vegan, I have introduced steam foods as – Steam vegetables, Idli, Dhokla, Vegetable Kofta (balls), Steam rice, in my diet. Indeed, I feel light and fresh for the day.

4. Eat light Dinner and before 8pm :

Dinners with get togethers, evening dates, accompanied with some really delectable food have high presence in our lives. We have more dinner parties than lunch parties for obvious reasons. Further, family tends to assemble during dinner time and we all plan to make that special with some lavish and lip smacking delicacies on the dinner table.

The reason to keep dinner simple and well before 8pm is reduction in the body activity. When we sleep, our body reduces the Metabolic rate, resulting in poor digestion and accumulation of more fat. Hence keep the dinner food light, with carbs for a healthy and fat free body.

5. Enhance Lemon water intake and no Green tea empty stomach :

Until recently, I saw many people loving their green tea’s early morning first thing. Whoa! There is a science behind not doing so. The tannins present in the green tea increase the early morning stomach acidity and it can lead to nausea , stomach ache for some people. Also since Green Tea has caffeine, it affects the anxiety level and sleeplessness if taken as the first thing empty stomach in morning. Incase any of you have sleep problems/anxiety/stomach problems/Iron deficiency, then better postpone the energy Green drink and have it after your meals.

Further, enhance Lemon intake in morning. Since, I prefer to opt for turmeric as well, so I usually take a mix healing drink of Turmeric, pepper and lemon in lukewarm water early in the morning. Lemon has vitamin C and helps in digestion and fighting many diseases, while turmeric’s properties have been shared earlier. This gives me a perfect detox drink in the morning. Followed by a fruit and steam food, I feel much better with these healthy options in my food regime.

What about you? Are you into any of these regime or prefer to? Any suggestions you would like to share more for the readers out here?

Let’s pledge to give our bodies a good and healthy start for a healthy life. Try inculcating these habits and observe the difference.

Happy healthy Living!