The great thing about Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) is that it’s an eating plan for life. Unless you have specific food sensitivities or other medical issues that require medical nutrition therapy (see Chapter 1), DASH is a great eating plan for the whole family, not just those with (or at risk for) high blood pressure. You do have to be willing to make a few adjustments to your eating schedule and food choices, though.
Specifically, you need to eat on a fairly regular schedule and include more fruits, vegetables, and dairy foods in your diet. (If you have an intolerance to dairy or lactose, you can still adopt the plan; see Chapter 5 for more on dairy.) No super-exotic foods are required with DASH, but you may encounter vegetables you don’t eat too often or whole grains you haven’t tried. Dare yourself to become a more adventurous eater as part of your journey to a healthier diet. (We share numerous tantalizing recipes in Part 4 that make moving ahead in your food adventures easy and tasty.)
In this chapter, you find out how to get ready to modify your current diet. You also discover how to set goals, track your progress toward those goals, and overcome pitfalls that could otherwise hinder your progress.
Setting Yourself Up for a DASHing Success
Creating and practicing a new routine is part of establishing a new habit. If your diet is low in fruits and vegetables and high in salt and fat right now, you can’t expect to do a complete turnaround overnight. You have to establish a few small goals at a time and work on those goals until they become new habits. After you adopt a few new habits, you can move on to the next few goals.
You can successfully follow a DASH diet plan by keeping these tips in mind:
Make a commitment to change your habits for the long haul, not just your food and beverage intake.
Be open to learning more about how your body works and why diet truly has an impact on health.
Replace overeating behaviors with other strategies for coping with stress, boredom, and other situations where emotions rule eating.
Stay open-minded about trying new foods.
Understand that modifying your diet to include DASH diet principles isn’t a quick fix, nor are the overall lifestyle changes you’ll make.
Realize that you’ll have setbacks — and that you can forgive yourself and move on.
Seek a support system to help you meet your eating and exercise goals.
Of course, before you make any changes in your diet or lifestyle, you have to be in the “action phase” of readiness, which is the fourth stage of the classic five-stage model for successful behavioral change:
Precontemplation: In this stage, you’re not even thinking about changing your diet or lifestyle, and you may not even realize that you have a problem (for instance, if you’re overweight or your doctor has told you that your diet is affecting your health).
Contemplation: During this stage, you’re willing to consider making some changes, but you may be on the fence.
Determination: The fact that you’re holding this book in your hands probably means you’re at least in the determination stage. You’ve thought about it, you’re making a plan, and you’re ready to commit to some action.
Action: In this stage, you may also be sharing your goals with others, making you more accountable. During this stage, you continue to work on your plan by setting goals and tracking progress. Success breeds success! The success you have (whether it’s lower blood pressure, weight loss, lower blood cholesterol, or just feeling better) is a huge motivator to keep on track. You may be in the action stage for at least three to six months, and this leads to maintenance.
Maintenance: This stage is a lifelong endeavor where you address the ups and downs and get through situations that are challenging (vacations, holidays, and other special occasions).
Generally, most people go through each stage and often have setbacks along the way. Provided you recover from them, those setbacks are A-OK because the DASH lifestyle isn’t a quick-fix fad diet; it’s an eating plan to adopt for a lifetime of healthy living.
www.eatright.org and click “Find a Registered Dietitian” to find one near you using your ZIP code.
More of This, Less of That
As outlined in Chapter 1, the DASH diet includes lots of fruits and vegetables and some nuts and whole grains but limits saturated fat, desserts, and salt. For many people the “lots of fruits and vegetables” aspect is tricky, but those foods are essential for the full benefits of the DASH diet plan.
No worries! We have you covered with easy suggestions to help you meet your goals of adding more fruits and vegetables to every meal. Even if some vegetables are on your don’t-like list or eating spinach at breakfast seems completely weird to you, open your mind to some of our sneaky healthy-eating suggestions in this section and give fruits and vegetables another chance. Before you know it, you’ll find them much tastier and more convenient than all those processed foods you may be used to.
Increasing the quantity of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and beans
The first strategy for adding more plant foods to your diet is making sure you have them available. Face it — you won’t eat right if all you have in the fridge is a jar of mustard and some pickles. Adding fruits and vegetables to your weekly shopping list is a must. These foods contain a good amount of potassium, an important mineral for healthy hearts.
Having easy, ready-to-eat access to these foods in the refrigerator is helpful. When you purchase vegetables, store them in the crisper bin in the refrigerator; they’ll last longer. Keep some washed, cut, and ready to eat in airtight containers so grabbing them is easy. The same goes for fruit: Keep it stored in a fruit bin, and keep fruits that perish more quickly (bananas, berries, and so on) on your running grocery list so you always have them on hand.
Try