Eating healthy for your lung health
Healthy living is a priority for everyone – making good nutritional choices and maintaining a healthy body weight are important steps to living a healthy life. For those who suffer from a chronic disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), being healthy is an important element to the management of the disease.
COPD is a serious lung disease primarily caused by smoking and is currently the fourth leading cause of death in Canada. Activities that were once part of a daily routine can become almost impossible.
But eating a well-balanced diet nourishes the body and provides much-needed energy.
Taking the time to improve your diet can:
. Improve activity tolerance.
. Improve resistance to infections.
. Increase ability to prevent illness.
. Reduce hospitalizations.
. Improve general physical and emotional well-being.
Nutritionist Helene Charlebois advises COPD patients that “although diet can’t improve your COPD, it can help make your day-to-day life more productive, manageable, and most importantly, enjoyable.”
The following tips can help COPD patients when preparing and eating meals.
. Choose meals that are easy to prepare.
. Cook meals in large batches. Frozen dinners can be easily heated up and eaten on low energy days.
. Take time to eat without rushing.
. Instead of three big meals, try eating five to six smaller meals a day.
. Avoid extremely hot or extremely cold foods.
. Avoid gas forming foods such as raw onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, peppers, radishes.
. Avoid drinking with a straw as it can cause additional air-trapping in the lungs.
More information is available online at www.copdhelp.ca.
Credit: www.newscanada.com
