All of us have had those epiphanies where we decide that we’re going to make a conscious effort to nourish our bodies with healthy foods and less junk. Unfortunately, most of us struggle to follow through. Often, it’s not for lack of trying. It’s just that we mistakenly associate healthier and nutritious diets with restricted eating or insipid meals, which is simply not sustainable.
For a more realistic, long-term approach to healthy eating, don’t try to transform your diet overnight. Instead, make small simple changes that will make it easier for you to eat healthy. This can include dietary changes, as well as behavioral changes that you adopt gradually and consistently. Here are some simple tips to help you get started.
1. Load Up On Veggies
The simplest way to make any diet healthy is by bulking it up with veggies. Include a variety of vegetables, especially leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables, or opt for the best green powders to ensure balanced nutrition and plenty of fiber.
This not only boosts your health but also makes meals more filling, helping to curb overeating and reduce the temptation to snack on unhealthy options. As a general rule of thumb, aim to fill half your plate with vegetables, both cooked and raw.
2. Include Foods That Support Gut Health
Pay particular attention to your gut health as it plays a crucial role in every aspect of your wellbeing. Try to include probiotic-rich foods such as kefir, yogurt, miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, and kimchi in your regular diet to support a healthy balance of bacteria in your digestive system. You can also take supplements, using dietitian-recommended probiotics for women to help digestion, enhance nutrient absorption, and even boost your immune system.
3. Ditch Ultra-Processed Foods
There is growing recognition of the threat posed by foods that are heavily processed, with research linking high ultra-processed dietary intake with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and lower life expectancy. Ultra-processed foods include those manufactured from multiple ingredients, including additives like preservatives, colorings, and emulsifiers that undergo extensive processing, as opposed to packaged foods that are simply canned or frozen. If any of your meals include such ingredients, swap them out for healthier whole foods. This single step can transform the quality of your diet.
4. Start Meal Prepping
Although TikTok and Facebook may be full of health hacks that don’t really work and are often downright dangerous, meal prepping has good cause for its popularity. The practice actually helps fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders with busy lifestyles to stay on track with their health goals, making it significantly easier to eat homemade meals. By planning ahead and keeping the basic preparations for your dishes ready, you can save a lot of time on working days. For example, you can chop your veggies and cook your meats over the weekend, freezing them into separate containers for individual meals.
If you’re prepping meals in bulk for a larger household or even a small food business, investing in a commercial display freezer can help keep your meals fresh and organized while making storage more efficient. You can also keep sauces and dressings ready in advance.
5. Eat Seasonal Produce
Most healthy and sustainable diets include plenty of seasonal local produce, so make it a point to choose them in your regular diet. This will allow you to have fresher foods that deliver a wide range of nutrients, and they also taste better as they are harvested at peak ripeness. In addition to being good for you, eating seasonal produce is also good for the environment as it reduces the usage of resources on transportation and storage.
6. Eat From Smaller Plates
A common reason for overeating is that we eat out of super-sized cups and plates. While you can try to cut back on meal sizes without taking this step, it makes the behavior change incredibly challenging. Using smaller plates for meals forces you to take smaller servings and it makes portion control significantly easier. This has also been observed in research, as reported in a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
7. Don’t Go Hungry
Although conventional diet advice may have emphasized restricted food intake, most experts now agree that limiting food intake to three meals a day increases the likelihood of overeating and poor food choices. Try to eat smaller and healthier meals more frequently. This could mean including healthy snacks such as fresh fruit and a handful of nuts or Greek yogurt between breakfast and lunch and between breakfast and dinner. This practice helps to keep your blood sugar levels from dropping, which can increase the risk of food cravings.
8. Eat Mindfully
It’s a common practice for many of us to eat our meals on the go to save time and be more efficient. Unfortunately, while this might save you a little time, it comes at a significant health cost. People who follow such eating behaviors tend to have a higher intake of unhealthy foods and overeat as they are less mindful of their food intake. Making time to eat meals at the dining table, and focusing on your food helps cultivate better eating habits and a stronger mind-body connection so that you can respond to your body’s cues eating as much as needed, when hungry, and stopping when full. For extra support in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, you can also consider taking supplements from Australian Vitamins, which can help fill in any nutritional gaps.