Small Diet Changes For Seniors That Can Lead To Big Weight Loss
Seniors have a much better chance of staying healthy as they get older if they maintain a healthy weight. If your senior parent is overweight and really wants to lose some weight to improve their health there are several things they can do to start losing weight. Exercise is essential for staying healthy, but seniors often can’t exercise enough to lose weight just through exercise alone.
Dietary changes combined with increased physical activity are the best way for seniors to lose weight. But diets often fail because they are hard to follow, restrictive, and they can be expensive. Seniors shouldn’t try fad diets to lose weight. Instead, they should focus on making small changes to how they eat that can become healthy habits. Some really effective diet changes that seniors can make without too much discomfort are:
Cut Portions In Half
In-Home Care Broomall, PA: Diet Changes
Often the problem with losing weight isn’t the foods that seniors are choosing to eat. It’s how much of those foods they are eating. An easy way to reduce calories without feeling restricted is for seniors to just cut their portion size in half. When your senior loved one makes a meal for themselves encourage them to put half of the meal in a container right away and put it in the fridge. They can still eat whatever they want, just half of the amount they usually would eat. This one small change can be surprisingly effective at helping seniors lose weight.
Eat With Someone
Seniors who eat alone may eat more than they should or eat unhealthy foods because they are bored or lonely. In-home care for seniors can help by providing company for seniors and eating meals with them. An in-home care provider can also help your senior cook healthy meals so that your senior loved one isn’t relying on heavily processed, high calorie, and unhealthy foods because they can’t or don’t want to cook healthy meals.
Eat Vegetables At Every Meal
Vegetables are something everyone should be eating more of. They’re low calorie but packed with nutrients and they can be quite filling. Seniors should be eating at least one vegetable at every meal. Vegetables for breakfast? Yes! There are lots of ways seniors can eat vegetables for breakfast like including spinach in an omelet or topping a breakfast burrito with salsa and guacamole. With some creativity and a little help cooking seniors can easily at least one vegetable to every meal and kick start their weight loss.
Don’t Eat After Dinner
When your senior loved one eats can be as important for weight loss as what they eat. Seniors shouldn’t eat any food after dinner. Not snacking at night will save calories and give their bodies a chance to digest the food they’ve already eaten that day. Just by making small changes like these in their diet your senior parent can start to lose weight in a healthy way so that they can live longer and have a better quality of life.
If you or an aging loved one are considering In-Home Care in Broomall, PA please contact the caring staff at True Direct Home Health Care today.
Doc, as he is called by everyone - staff, patients and clients - first experienced home health care and hospice care while as a colleg student at King's College as he cared for his mother every day while she first battled COPD and then lung cancer. It was during this time that he came to understand that caring for a patient was more than just clinical expertise.
"Admittedly, my strongest attribute is my communication skills and the simple fact that I love to help people. Even the smallest thing you can do for someone really can mean so much to them long term. In fact, it could change them forever. That's what providing quality personal home health care should be all about."
In his spare time, he cooks for homeless shelters and children's music and arts events. He also is highly involved in his local youth sports soccer academy as a coach and Board member.
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