Day 24
One way to eat healthy is to reduce the amount of refined grains you eat — and replace them with whole grains.
Today’s Mission
Here’s a list of today’s assignments. You’ll find more details down below!
- Complete Day 3 of the “7 Day Healthy Lifestyle Goal Setting Plan“.
- Track the calories you eat today, keeping within your daily calorie goals, as well as paying attention to your carb, protein and fat percentage goals.
- Evaluate your food choices. How healthy are they? What can you do to make healthier food choices?
- Learn more about refined/whole grains, and how to reduce/add them to your diet.
- Come on over to Facebook, Twitter or Google + for support (or use the comments down below).
- Fill out the Daily Habits Awareness Sheet for Week 4 at the end of the day.
Reduce Refined Grains…
Refined grains are grains that have been processed, removing much of the nutrition. Although some refined grains have added vitamins and minerals to replace the lost nutrition, dietary fiber is not usually added back in. We also tend to eat too many refined grain products, resulting in an excess of calories — which leads to weight gain.
According to the USDA, the main culprits adding to the problem are: yeast breads, pizza, grain-based desserts, tortillas, pasta and pasta dishes.
Because refined grains such as cookies, cakes and desserts also contain high amounts of fat and sugar, reducing the amount you eat go a long way to helping you lose weight and eat healthy.
…And Replace Them with Whole Grains
We covered grains in the Week 3 of the boot camp, but I thought I’d add a bit more here. As a society, we L-O-V-E our grains! Grains can be part of healthy diet when you make them whole grains. If they’re cracked, crushed or flaked, they’re still considered whole grains if the equivalent parts of the grain are present in the same proportions as whole grain.
Whole grains can provide some essential vitamins and minerals, as well as dietary fiber.
The trick here is to reduce the refined grains while adding in whole grains. You don’t want to keep eating the refined grains AND add in the whole wheat grains. You’ll just be eating more calories.
Look for these whole grain ingredients:
- brown rice
- buckwheat
- bulgur
- millet
- oatmeal
- quinoa
- rolled oats
- whole-grain barley
- whole-grain corn
- whole-grain sorghum
- whole-grain triticale
- whole oats
- whole rye
- whole wheat
- wild rice
But these ingredients are usually not whole grains, according to the USDA:
- multi-grain
- stone-ground
- 100% wheat
- cracked wheat
- seven-grain
- bran
Share the Experience
A lot of people have trouble reducing refined grains? Does that sound like you? How difficult is it for you to reduce refined grains?
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Week 1
Prep Day | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
Week 2
Week 2 Prep | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14
Week 3
Week 3 Prep | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21
Week 4
Week 4 Prep | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Graduation Day - Beyond the Boot Camp