My Personal Diet Modification Plan

The first step in creating a diet modification plan is to take a close look at your own personal dietary strengths and weaknesses. After reflecting on my current diet, I concluded that I have the following weaknesses:

• I like alcoholic beverages like beer, wine coolers, and canned margaritas- all of which contain more carbohydrates and sugar than my body needs.
• I love bread and butter with my meals- the butter is high in saturated fat and the bread contains refined wheat flour because it is usually white French or Italian bread.
• I crave caffeine and chocolate. Caffeine, in excess can cause hypertension and headaches, as well as that horrible "crash" once it wears off. Chocolate (milk chocolate in my case) contains sugar and saturated fat in excessive amounts.
• I love pasta dishes with lots of cheese.

I also evaluated my strengths when it comes to my diet in terms of nutrition:

• I do actually love many healthy foods like chick peas, chicken breast, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, granola, and fat free Greek yogurt to name a few.
• When I do my weekly grocery shopping, I will make a list and I'm pretty good at sticking to it.
• Since January 1 of this year, I have eliminated fast food from my diet.
• I have switched from coffee to chai tea which contains less caffeine.

So given my strengths and weaknesses in regards to nutrition, I have come up with the following modifications to be effective immediately:

1. In addition to continuing to eliminate  fast food, I will also eliminate junk food from the grocery list, instead replacing these snack foods with fresh fruits and vegetables.
2. I will enhance my shopping list to include ingredients for recipes obtained from healthy recipe websites such as kidshealth.org/parents/recipes/
3. I will replace my French and Italian bread with whole grain versions and use an olive oil spread instead of butter.
4. I will replace traditional pasta with whole grain pasta and switch to 2% or fat free cheese for these kinds of recipes.
5. I will consume chocolate in moderation, maybe having the occasional "kiss" instead of an entire chocolate bar.
6. I will replace ice cream with fat free frozen yogurt or sorbet.
7. I will include a red or green vegetable with every dinner.
8. I will drink alcoholic beverages in moderation, limiting them to no more than one serving in one day.
9. I will eat smaller, healthy meals and healthy snacks in between meals instead of gorging on food in one sitting.
10. I will consume no more carbohydrates than what I need for energy.
11. I will replace red meats with fish at least once a week.

"Recipes for the Whole Family". (2014). Retrieved from http://kidshealth.org/parent/recipes/