Colorful Diet

Following up on an earlier post about colored rubber bands/bracelets, I have finally gotten some. My friend gave me a set yesterday. They are just thin plastic bracelets. There are five colors: Purple, red, orange, yellow, and green. I have assigned each color a specific food group...

Purple (Protein): This would be a serving of beans, nuts, or a soy food.
Red (Fruit): Any serving of fresh fruit.
Orange (Vegetable): A serving of veggies!!!
Yellow (Whole Grain): Oatmeal, quinoa, whole grain rice.. you know, the fiber stuff.
Green (Green, leafy vegetable): Yes! Another vegetable!! I love my veggies. I want to make sure I'm getting more green than I normally do.

The whole idea is to start all of the bracelets on one wrist and as you eat a serving of a category, movie is to the other wrist. So, this morning I had all of them on my right arm. I had oatmeal and grapefruit for breakfast so I moved the red and the yellow to my left arm. I know that I'm eating a lot of grilled veggies and a quinoa and bean dip tonight, so I decided to get some green veggies in for lunch. About half of a bunch of asparagus.

Basically, these are just reminders not to let junk take the place of foods that I need every day. Like yesterday, I decided to have a salad instead of a calzone or pizza or a bread sandwich because I was lacking my leafy greens for the day.

This also seems like an easy reminder. It's visual and it's always right there with you.

Also, if I eat more than one serving of a group, I just move it back to the other wrist.

It's not difficult to eat a healthy, colorful diet. All you may need is a reminder.