Celebrate Your Plate
You know a small nutritional change – something as simple as eating an extra serving or two of fruits and vegetables every day – can add up to major shifts in health, weight, and disease prevention. If you’ve been working on those tweaks, additions, and replacements every day in an effort to move more and more toward a better food plate, then good for you. In fact, “What’s on MyPlate?” Day is just for you.
It’s All on Your Plate
Little changes are no small thing. Paying attention to the principles of a superior plate can be ground-breaking for us as individuals and as a culture. That’s why this Thursday, March 8, Wild About Health is joining its community members in celebrating “What’s on MyPlate?” day. The celebration is intended to hang a little crepe in recognition of our healthy eating behaviors and to help spread the word about our successes.
You know MyPlate as the new food pyramid – or plate – that helps consumers fill their plates with the right foods and focus on smaller portions. By using the colorful plate as a guideline for every meal, MyPlate gives us a visual cue that helps us modify our eating behaviors for the better.
Enjoy a Little More, Eat a Little Less
So what’s behind “What’s on MyPlate?” day? It is intended to put the focus on enjoying our food – but enjoying less of it. After all, we are tied to our plates for our sustenance and nutrition, so enjoying the food on them is essential. Enjoying our plate can include eating mindfully, or paying more attention to the foods we love, as well as to the hunger cues that tell us when we’re full. It can also mean keeping those special treats we love in our life, but thinking of them as special rather than regular indulgences.
As part of enjoying your food in a better way, you might be choosing to increase your intake of fruits like antioxidant-rich wild blueberries, for instance, or eating more leafy greens. You might be trading in your soda for water or another lower-calorie beverage. You might be keeping track of your eating by using tools like Supertracker, a food database and diet and exercise tracker to help keep you going down the right road. If you are making any of these small changes, or you aspire to, you’re ready to celebrate. (Reconcile your changes for the better with this nutritional tip sheet.)
How to Celebrate “What’s On MyPlate Day?”
If you haven’t climbed on the MyPlate bandwagon, now is the time to start. Proponents of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest the following: First, on Thursday, start paying special attention to your food – consider “What’s on MyPlate?” during each meal that day.
Second, celebrate your shifts to a better plate by sharing them. Telling your story means you’re part of the swell of good nutritional karma. It reinforces your efforts to be healthy and encourages others to do the same. Here’s how to start sharing:
Blog about it. Got a platform? Tell your story, and share photos of your successes. Let your readers know how important it is to you to pay attention to your plate every day. Tell them how MyPlate guidelines have helped you construct your meals, and share your own tips and insights.
Tweet about it. Use the hash-tag #MyPlateYourPlate to tell your tweeps how you are enjoying food and eating less, and ask them just what’s up with their plate.
Share your plates. Put the MyPlate movement into action by taking photos of healthful plates worth sharing, and use the hash-tag #MyPlate to post them at USDA’s Flickr Photo Group.
Make a video. Get together with your community and show the world how important a great plate is. Communities on the Move Video Challenge invites organizations that work with children to create short videos that highlight their efforts to reverse the trend of childhood obesity.
Tell us. Share your stories with Wild About Health. We want to know how you’ve changed your plate in an effort to maintain your health, enjoy your food more, and eat less. We’ll share photos of your plates, and news of your successes and challenges to help further the discussion of good health, nutrition, and disease prevention.
Celebrate your plate March 8th—and celebrate YOU!