Eating Right in Assisted Living

Everyone knows that eating right is an important part of healthy living. Following through with a healthy diet day in and day out is a different story, though. Many people have good intentions about changing their eating lifestyle, but not a lot of these people actually stick to their plan for an extended period of time. Luckily, there are some steps you can take when you live in an assisted living facility to improve your eating habits.

The first thing you will want to do is to establish a written diet plan. You need to do this for a number of reasons-both to help guide the assisted living staff and to help establish guidelines for yourself. Writing down the foods you wish to eat also serves another purpose: it will make sure that you are more likely to stick with a diet plan. The simple act of writing down your foods actually makes you more apt to follow it by increasing your investment into the particular diet that you plan.

Once you have a written plan, you need to go over it with the staff of your facility. This ensures that everyone is on the same page. You will be able to specify exactly how strict your diet should be, too. For some people, a special diet is a necessity, whether because of diabetes, Celiac disease, or morbid obesity. For others, a special diet is not as mandatory, but is adhered to because of the good health benefits that accompany it. Here, you can establish how your diet should function. You can even pencil in tentative "cheat" meals, if you wish. For some people, these are not necessary, but for others, they can actually help with the overall adherence to the diet. Not everyone is blessed with the discipline that it takes to stick to a strict diet and these cheat days are necessary for their sanity. There's no doubt that a diet can be very difficult to stick with.

After this, you let the assisted living staff do the work for you. The great thing about living in assisted living is that they will prepare your meals for you. This eliminates a lot of the difficulty that arises when you must get your own food ready. In this instance, it's sometimes a lot easier just to go with processed, already prepared foods. When you don't have to do the work, your diet will become much easier to stay with.

The benefits of a good diet cannot be overstated. This will help you stay healthier, it can potentially reduce the amount you will pay for healthcare, and it can increase your life expectancy. With so many great benefits, it's a wonder that more people don't take advantage of a good diet.