Healthy Eating
9 EASY
TIPS FOR PLANNING A HEALTHY DIET AND STICKING TO IT
Healthy eating is
not about strict nutrition philosophies, staying unrealistically thin, or
depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great,
having more energy, stabilizing your mood, and keeping yourself as healthy as
possible– all of which can be achieved by learning some nutrition basics and
using them in a way that works for you. You can expand your range of healthy
food choices and learn how to plan ahead to create and maintain a tasty,
healthy diet.
Healthy
eating tip 1: Set yourself up for success
To set yourself
up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable
steps rather than one big drastic change. If you approach the changes gradually
and with commitment, you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think.
- Simplify. Instead of
being overly concerned with counting calories or measuring portion sizes, think
of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. This way it should
be easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and
easy recipes that incorporate a few fresh ingredients. Gradually, your
diet will become healthier and more delicious.
- Start slow and make
changes to your eating habits over time. Trying to make your diet
healthy overnight isn’t realistic or smart. Changing everything at once
usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small
steps, like adding a salad (full of different color vegetables) to your
diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking.
As your small changes become habit, you can continue to add more
healthy choices to your diet.
- Every change
you make to improve your diet matters. You don’t have to be perfect and
you don’t have to completely eliminate foods you enjoy to have a healthy
diet. The long term goal is to feel good, have more energy, and reduce the
risk of cancer and disease. Don’t let your missteps derail you—every
healthy food choice you make counts.
Think
of water and exercise as food groups in your diet.
Water. Water helps flush our systems of
waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated—causing
tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger,
so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.
Exercise. Find something active that you like to
do and add it to your day, just like you would add healthy greens, blueberries,
or salmon. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise
may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.
Healthy
eating tip 2: To read more on this important topic, click here
