Nutrition is critical to you being healthy. It's the most significant part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, according to experts and studies. The benefits from eating a well-balanced meal can significantly impact many areas of your life, including weight, energy level and how you sleep.

Power To End Stroke has partnered with chef Maurietta Amos to create Power Nutrition, a section of the Power Web site that can help you understand why good nutrition is important and learn how to make changes in your diet to achieve your nutrition goals. Meet Chef Amos.

Getting Started

People face many challenges to adopting healthier eating behaviors. For some, it's the perceived time that it takes to cook. Some people don't like the taste of certain foods. Others don't like anything they might consider "diet food" or can't imagine eating that way for the rest of their lives. They feel deprived if they can't eat anything "good," "salty" or "sweet." In the Power Nutrition Plan, we'll challenge you to make alterations and even adopt some new behaviors that will change how you think about, prepare and eat food.

The key to enjoying healthier foods is retraining your palate. Most people have developed certain eating patterns over time due to culture, where they live, time constraints, or budget restrictions. As a result, we have conditioned our taste buds to be stimulated by certain types of foods or cooking methods. Did you know that fat, salt and sugar can alter the tongues ability to detect certain flavors? Fat coats the taste buds and can block them from perceiving flavors. Excess salt and sugars can have a numbing effect.

Good nutrition is essential for your family's health. Explore the Power Nutrition Plan and start making small changes in your diet; you'll be surprised at how much you can do to improve your diet. You can also browse the American Heart Association's Nutrition Center for articles and tools for healthier eating.