Fulfilling All the Food Quantities

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week - Fulfilling All the Food Quantities

If you are living the SWEET Life with me, then I’ve given you a SWEET Life Plan that includes the amounts you, personally, need of each aspect of the SWEET Life. You simply put the SWEET Life Plan in a plastic sheet protector and cross out each amount as you finish it. At the end of the day, you give it a quick review to see your strengths and weaknesses, erase the whole thing, and start fresh the next day. The main section that you need to keep track of is the Eating section because that’s the most complex of the five aspects of the SWEET Life. An example of it is below (without formatting):

Eating

Grains: 6 ounces (1 ounce equivalent is about 1 slice bread, 1 cup dry cereal, or ½ cup cooked rice, pasta, or cereal) eat whole grains
1oz. 1oz. 1oz. 1oz. 1oz. 1oz.

Vegetables: 2 ½ cups (Subgroups: Dark Green, Red, Orange, Starchy, Dry Beans and Peas, and Other Veggies)
½ c. ½ c. ½ c. ½ c. ½ c.

Fruit: 2 cups (Subgroups: green, yellow/orange, red, citrus)
½ c. ½ c. ½ c. ½ c.

Dairy: 3 cups (1½ oz. cheese = 1 cup milk)
½ c. ½ c. ½ c. ½ c. ½ c. ½ c.

Protein**: 5 ½ ounces (chicken, duck, pork or fish, 1 egg, 1 T. peanut butter, ½ ounce nuts, ¼ cup dry beans, 1 oz. soy, limited beef and lamb)
1oz. 1oz. 1oz. 1oz. 1oz. ½ oz.

Many people, including me, find it difficult to fulfill all the food quantities. Here are some suggestions for how to do it:

As you approach dinner time, review your Plan to see which food groups you are lacking. Make sure your dinner will fulfill the necessary food groups.

Leave the food groups open proportionately. Rather than eating all the grains and protein and very few fruits and veggies, for example, make sure to eat from all food groups in a balanced fashion and skimp a little bit on every food group.

Most importantly, think about what else you are eating that doesn’t fit in any of the food group categories because you know you are eating something! Make a plan for choosing healthier alternatives and follow through on your plan.

Source:
http://mypyramid.gov/

I welcome your feedback on the Topic of the Week. You can share your comments here. I am also looking for more topics of the week. If there are any topics related to the SWEET Life that you would like me to explore, please let me know by emailing me at suzanne@fong.net.

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne