Want to know how to eat healthy? Here are five great ways to get you going on the right track.
If you’re confused about how to eat healthy, you’re not alone. I’ve been in the nutrition field for more than 20 years and I’ve seen plenty of once-taboo foods like eggs and nuts go from the dietitian blacklist to our recommended list.
Based on my 20+ years of being a registered dietitian, here are 5 food rules I live by today to improve your diet, overall health and help you peel off pounds.
5 Ways to Eat Healthy to Live Healthy & Lean
1. Think Quality not Calorie: Evaluating foods based on calories can ruin a healthy diet because foods low in calories can be low in nutrients too. Quality foods, on the other hand, are those that provide the most nutrients per calories. They include what we always recommend: fruits, veggies, lean proteins, healthy fats and whole grains. They exclude sugar and saturated fat-rich choices like sweets, baked goods, fried foods and most salty snacks.
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2. Design Your Own Diet: If you need to lose weight, beg, borrow and steal elements of diets that have worked for you in the past to create your own approach. Research shows that people who are most successful adapt diets to meet their needs. They may combine elements of something they liked from Weight Watchers with another tidbit from South Beach. There is no one-size-fits-all diet, so make your own.
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3. Be Mindful: Our multitasking way of life is wreaking havoc on our hunger and satiety hormones. When you eat, that’s all you should be doing (no TV, smart phone or Ipad!). As you enjoy your meals and snacks, pay attention to your physiological hunger and be sure to stop well before you’re stuffed. Using our Hunger Scale below is one of the best tools to help you get in touch with your hunger. Research shows that when we eat while doing something else, we may eat up to twice as many calories as we would if we weren’t distracted.
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4. Cook more: Whether to frequent four-star restaurants or fast food joints, eating out takes it toll on our health and waistlines. Every meal eaten out each week ups your changes of piling on extra pounds. Cooking healthy meals is quick and easy, there’s no excuse for not doing it.
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5. Plan meals from the ground up. As a good rule of thumb, the bulk of your diet should come from fruits, veggies and whole grains. A healthy plate is one that has at least half of it filled with fruits and veggies. When you pile your plate with veggies, in particular, you fill yourself up on few calories but also get the thousands of beneficial phytonutrients present in colorful veggies.
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