Tipping the Scales in Your Favor

Have you decided to start eating healthier and become more physically active? Have you realized that healthy choices have a positive impact on not only yourself, but also those around you?

If your goal is to lose weight or maintain your current healthy weight, here are some tips to help you achieve that goal. Remember, to maintain weight, you must balance calorie intake with calories burned through physical activity. If you eat more than you expend, you gain weight. If you eat less (reduce calories) than you expend, you lose weight!

Make healthy choices a habit. This leads to a healthy lifestyle! Make a commitment to eat well, move more, and get support from family and friends. Even better, start eating healthier and being active together!

Eat enough servings of vegetables and fruits per day. The amount you should eat depends on your age, sex, and activity level. If you're adding fruits and vegetables to your diet, try substituting them for higher calorie, less nutritious foods.

Eat foods that are high in fiber to help you feel full. Whole grain cereals, legumes (lentils and beans), vegetables, and fruits are good sources of fiber that may help you feel full with fewer calories.

Prepare and eat meals and snacks at home. This is a great way to save money, eat healthy, and spend time with your family. When preparing meals, choose low-fat\low-calorie versions of your favorite ingredients and learn how easy it is to substitute. For example:

• Switch to 1 % or nonfat milk and low-fat cheeses.

• Use a cooking spray instead of oil or butter to decrease the amount of fat when you cook.

• Prepare baked potatoes with low-fat blue cheese dressing or low-fat plain yogurt instead of butter or
sour cream.

Start by using a scale and measuring cup to serve your food. Read food labels to determine serving sizes. One bowl of cereal may actually be two 3\4-cup servings. A small frozen pizza may contain up to three servings (check the nutrition information label). This could add up to more calories than you think you're getting. Being aware of serving sizes may make it easier to avoid those extra calories.

Choose snacks that are nutritious and filling. A piece of fresh fruit, cut raw vegetables, or a container of low-fat yogurt are excellent (and portable) choices to tide you over until mealtimes. Take these snacks with you for a healthy alternative to chips, cookies, or candy.

Take your time! Eat only when you are hungry and enjoy the taste, texture, and smell of your meal as you eat it. Remember, it takes approximately 15 minutes for your stomach to signal your brain that you are full.

if you choose to eat out, remember these important suggestions: Watch your portions. Portion sizes at restaurants (including fast food) are usually more than one serving, which can result in overeating. Choose smaller portion sizes, order an appetizer and a leafy green salad with low-fat dressing, share an entree with a friend, or get a "doggy bag" and save half for another meal.

Eat at Home

Part of having a healthy family includes spending time together. The family meal is a great way for everyone to get together, have a conversation, and eat together.

• Serving meals at home require planning. Before you do your shopping, sit down and plan your meals
for the week. Make a list of all the ingredients you'll need to prepare healthy, balanced meals.

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Maladies of the 21st century

We entered the 21st century with such maladies as heart and vascular system diseases, environmental diseases, cancer, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The risk factors causing these diseases are poor environment (especially after Chernobyl disaster), constant stress and bad habits. We witness more and more cases when people suffer from such environmental diseases as food allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, asthma, thyroid gland. They all have a huge impact on the quality of life, darken our prospects for future. Alcohol, drugs, smoking, AIDS have also become the reality of our life, especially among young and middle-aged people. Today we'll read the texts about the diseases, which have come as a result of people's ignorance and lack of healthy habits.

1.Read the extract carefully and note down the follow points:

a) the reasons for smoking;

b) harmful consequences of smoking;

c) the most likely diseases caused by smoking;

d) smoking and life-span.

Smoking

Smoking is very dangerous. Most young people smoke because their friends pressure them to do so. They may be copying their parents who smoke, or other adults they respect. At one time this would have been accepted as normal. But in the past 30 years attitudes about smoking have changes. Smoking is now banned in many places so that other people don't have to breathe in smokers' shocking tobacco smoke.

 Passive smoking, when you are breathing someone else’s smoke, can damage your health just like smoking can. Smoking becomes addictive very quickly, and it's one of the hardest habits to break.

 Take 1000 young people who smoke 20 cigarettes a day. A quarter of them will die from a disease caused by smoking. That's 250 lives wasted! Only six of those 1000 teenagers will die in road accidents. So what is it in cigarette smoke that is harmful? A chemical called nicotine is a substance that causes addiction. It is a stimulant that increases the pulse rate and a rise in the blood pressure. Cigarette smoke also contains tar - a major factor for causing cancer.

Chronic bronchitis occurs when tar damage and mucus the air sacks in the lungs. The sufferer has a bad cough, which is worse in the mornings, and may get breathless easily.

Gases in cigarette smoke increase your blood pressure and pulse rate. This can contribute to heart disease. Smokers as twice as non-smokers are likely to have heart trouble.

       Smokeless tobacco that is chewed ratherthan smoked, is also harmful, causing mouth sores, damage to teeth and cancer.

       If you've ever watched an adult try to give up smoking, you know how hard it, can be. It's easier, healthier and cheaper never to start.

Facts about smoking

• the smell of smoke on your breath and clothes will put people off.

• someone who smokes 15 cigarettes a day can forget six to nine years of their life.

• you’re burning a great deal of money. In many countries cigarettes are heavily taxed.

• your skin will wrinkle faster and deeper than that of a non-smoker.

• females who smoke heavily may wrinkle like a woman 20 years older in age.