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Tag: nutrition

Best Nutritional Foods to Improve a Senior’s Diet

“Health is wealth.” We’ve all heard this very famous quote but often fail to prioritize our health. Moreover, as we get older, we regret the health choices we’ve made. Are you a person taking care of a senior but don’t know which foods to incorporate into their daily diet? Don’t stress! There are many healthy food options to choose from. To help you, we have listed all the important nutritional foods to help you establish a balanced diet for your senior citizen.

  • Grains
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Nothing is better than whole grain food. This type of grain is low in fat, contains complex carbohydrates, and is high in fiber. This will prevent seniors from overeating and keep them full longer. Some of the best grain foods that you can choose are:

  1. Brown rice 
  2. Barley, quinoa, whole corn, etc.
  3. Wheat crackers and bread
  4. Whole wheat pasta 
  5. Steel-cut oats 
  • Fruits and Vegetables

A bowl of fresh fruits and vegetables is amongst the most popular healthy foods. These are low in fat and packed with nutrients, flavors, and minerals. Some of the best colorful fruits and vegetables that you can choose are:

  1. Apples, mangoes, oranges, pineapples 
  2. Blueberries, strawberries, cherries, pomegranates
  3. Citrus fruits: grapefruits and oranges.
  4. Peaches, pears, and melons
  5. Dark green vegetables: spinach and kale 
  6. Leafy green vegetables: cabbage and romaine 
  7. Tomatoes and avocados

Adding these healthy food items to a senior’s daily diet will not only keep them healthy but will reduce the risk of heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other health issues. 

Related: 3 Tips to Improve Your Memory – Home Instead Senior Care (homeinsteadseniorblog.com)

  • Meat, Poultry, Fish, and Beans
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Incorporate lean meats and fresh fish into your senior’s diet. We recommend serving these foods baked, boiled, grilled, and roasted instead of deep-frying. This is a great start to a healthy meal, as well as keeping your loved one from not becoming constipated and prevent weight gain in the long run. As they age, it may become difficult for a senior citizen to lose weight and burn calories. We suggest the following meats and fish for a balanced diet:

  1. A lean cut of beef or lamb
  2. Turkey and bacon.
  3. Chicken breast 
  4. Haddock, white fish, salmon, tuna, etc. 
  5. Shrimps, mussels, scallops, and lobsters
  6. Beans, lentils, and chickpeas
  • Dairy and Dairy Substitutes

Often, people experience joint pain, loss of bone mass, weakness, and slow movement as they age. A lack of proteins, vitamins, and calcium can lead to osteoporosis, causing the bones to become weak and more likely to break. In order to keep your senior bones healthy, you need to increase the intake of enriched milk substitutes such as:

  1. Sting cheese
  2. Low-fat milk 
  3. Low-fat cottage cheese 
  4. Plain, no-fat yogurt

The Bottom Line

As people age, it becomes quite essential to maintain a healthy diet. We hope that our guide will help you pick the best nutrient-rich food to meet your senior’s daily needs. If you’re looking for the most professional and friendly caregivers in Wilmington, NC, Home Instead Senior Care is the best choice. We have decades of experience in taking care of seniors’ meal prep and other lifestyle areas. For more information about our home care services, call (910) 342-0455 today!

3 Tips to Improve Your Memory

As we grow older, our memory can sometimes lapse or even fail. Fatigue, age, and various illnesses can wreak havoc on our memory. This is why we recommend three tips in memory improvement so you can enjoy and recollect your happy moments with clarity!

Nutrition

Now, this may be a strange thought: how does my diet affect my memory? Surprisingly, your nutrition plays a major part in the function of your brain and, by extension, your memory. By making smart choices in your diet, you are laying the foundations for an active brain. Great food choices include:

-Fruits

-Vegetables

-Fish

-Olive Oil

-Nuts

-Whole Grains

All of these selections have been linked to boosting brain activity and memory retention – caffeine too! However, caffeine can prove detrimental in large doses, so it is not recommended for prolonged use for alleviating memory loss.

Activity

Exercise is recommended for all ages, but it is especially important for elderly people to stay active every day. Going on walks, lifting lightweights, jogging, yoga, or swimming – all of these options will keep your body active while keeping your mind engaged as well. The increased blood flow throughout the body also benefits your brain on a physical level, allowing more blood and oxygen around the organ to keep it fully functioning.

Mental Exercises

Working out is great for your overall physical health, but you may be forgetting to work on an integral part of your memory. It resides in, you guessed it, your brain, and it is the most important organ in your entire body! While nutrition and exercise are a great start to a healthy brain, you need to work on your mind as well to truly improve and rebuild your memory techniques. Fun games and activities designed to improve your recollection include:

-Recall testing:

Make a list of groceries, chores, or a to-do list. Once you’ve done that, go over the list again with another person and list off all of the items by memory.

-Math

Math is a great subject to use as a brain teaser! Going through problems or formulas in your head without the aid of paper and pencil forces your mind to focus and keep track of previous steps. By doing simple exercises with your mind every day, this will help you focus and remember minor details and events in your life.

-Hand-eye coordination

While they may seem menial, picking up a hobby like knitting, drawing, or even sculpting will boost your memory. Many people are kinetic learners; if you learn by doing, hand-eye centered exercise is great for memory boosting and recall!

Conclusion

Which of these tips do you like best? Leave a comment below to show how these simple tricks helped boost your short and long-term memory recall, or even suggest a new trick that has worked for you!

High Cholesterol: What It Means and How to Treat It

By now it should be no surprise to hear that heart disease is one of leading causes of death in the United States. Contributing to about 1 in 4 deaths every year, there’s good reason behind our nationwide concern over issues like high cholesterol, one of the more commonly responsible causes of heart disease. And seeing how heart concerns become all the more frequent as we age across the board, knowing what exactly adds to the buildup of bad cholesterol is one of senior caregiver’s primary responsibilities.

What is cholesterol? What differentiates good and bad cholesterol? How can I treat unhealthy amounts of bad cholesterol? In the face of these concerned and varied questions, our team is eager to provide some answers and put those worries to rest. Read on for a bit of a primer and some recommendations on how to work on lowering high cholesterol and ensure you senior enjoys a healthy and fulfilling life with his or her loved ones.

Defining Cholesterol

Obviously, addressing the problem first asks of us to understand the problem inside and out. That begins first and foremost with a clear and concise definition for the ever-notorious “cholesterol”. Cholesterol is a waxy, insoluble substance that can be found in the bloodstream. Contrary to what many may believe, cholesterol actually serves some pretty constructive purposes within the body including producing certain hormones and vitamin D, aiding in the production of bile, and even making new cells! It’s when we move on to the more nefarious forms of cholesterol that we begin to see cause for concern.

We’ve all heard the old distinction between what we label as “good” and “bad” cholesterol. The former is what’s referred to as HDL, or high-density lipoprotein. This is the substance responsible for clearing out the less friendly variant of cholesterol LDL, or, you guessed it, low-density lipoprotein. LDL is what’s responsible for the buildup of plaque along the artery walls, which results in restricted blood flow to the heart and, in turn, heart disease.

Treating High Cholesterol

So now that the stage is set and we have a more in-depth understanding of what our true target is, the natural question asked is what tools or methods can we employ to combat LDL cholesterol? The answer, as worn and repeated as it may be, is diet and, wait for it, exercise. Before you start rolling your eyes and spamming the back arrow, know that a sedentary lifestyle has been proven to be one of, if not the most, influential causes of increased cholesterol and heart disease. Fortunately, unless you’re noticeably overweight (in which case, adopting a plan to drop extra pounds may be necessary), combating cholesterol doesn’t necessarily mean you need to start bulking up with protein shakes and slamming barbells half your weight at the gym. Doing anything to avoid having an overly sedentary lifestyle, such as periodic walks, gardening, or even light movement exercises, can do wonders for lowering you or your senior’s cholesterol levels.

As far as diet and nutrition are concerned, we’ve also covered some recommendations in regards to food and even ways of implementing those dietary changes into your senior’s routine in previous posts!

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking after a loved one or yourself, staying on top of your nutrition and cholesterol levels is an absolute must. There’s no denying the dangers of heart disease and if all it takes are a few lifestyle changes to eradicate the possibilities of you or a senior suffering from these complications, we’d say it’s well worth it!