7 Top Tips to Make Healthy Eating Easy
With the new year almost upon us, you might be struggling to come up with a new resolution for 2020. Of all the many aspects of your life that you should always strive to improve, your diet is one of the most important. While changing your diet might seem like a huge task, there are a few fundamental things you can do to help make healthy eating easy.
7 Top tips to make healthy eating easy
1. The importance of lists
It’s not the first time we’ve said it, but we really can’t stress enough how important it is to make a grocery list. If you go to the store without knowing what you have and don’t have in the house, you’ll end up filling the shopping cart with bargain buys you didn’t need (and which will probably end up in the trash) and a load of high calorie, unhealthy snacks with no real nutritional value.
2. Make healthy eating easy – weekly meal plans
If you really want to make healthy eating easy, we recommend making yourself a weekly meal plan. That way you can make a grocery list knowing exactly what you’re going to make for the entire week, instead of simply buying different items at random.
By making a plan, you’ll also be able to see how many portions of fruit and veg you’re eating each week, and make sure you’re getting enough in your diet.
3. Cook for the whole week
Do all your cooking for the week in one day, and store everything in the fridge. This might sound like a lot of effort, but it’s better to spend a few hours cooking once a week than to have to work out what you’re having for dinner every day at the very last minute.
This will help you eat more healthily, as you’ll be able to avoid simply grabbing a sandwich or a frozen pizza when you get home from work starving hungry.
4. Make healthy eating easy – eat natural foods
More natural, less processed. If you’re not sure how to eat more healthily, here’s a good rule to keep in mind – choose foods that look as similar as possible to their original, natural state.
For example, if you had to choose between a fresh tomato and a bottle of ketchup, the answer would be pretty obvious. The tomato looks exactly the same as it did when it was picked. The sauce has been highly processed and mixed with a lot of extra ingredients. You don’t need to avoid it altogether, but try to limit the amount of processed foods you eat and increase the natural fruit and veg in your diet.
5. Eat seasonal foods
Eating seasonal foods and eating healthily go hand in hand. Once again, we can put our trust in nature, and eat the products each season has to offer us.
In winter, you can eat oranges to give you vitamin C, which can help to keep away colds and flu. During the summer, you can buy fruits rich in water to help keep you hydrated in the hot weather. In the spring, you can buy fresh, leafy green vegetables, which are high in chlorophyll, and great for detoxing the body.
6. Make healthy eating easy – organization is the key
Order is essential if you want to be able to eat healthily. Remember, your environment has a huge impact on your health. If your home is in disarray, it will be difficult for you to feel good on the inside. Having a neatly organized pantry will also help you plan better, give you greater clarity when it comes to writing meal plans, and make it easier to know what you need to buy.
7. A healthy diet
If you don’t want to eat it, don’t buy it. Avoid bringing home food that you know is bad for you, and then you won’t be able to give in to temptation,
Keep healthy food such a fruit and mixed nuts out on the counter where you can see them. That way, if you start to feel hungry between meals, they will be the first thing you see.
Finally, we want to leave you with a few extra tips:
- Always keep containers of chopped up fruit close to hand, to encourage you to eat more fresh produce. You could even freeze some, and use it to make fresh, healthy smoothies.
- Buy seeds and unsalted nuts.
- Oils should be cold-pressed and kept in dark bottles, as sunlight can degrade the quality and flavor.
- Try to make sure that your cooking equipment and utensils are of high quality. Poor quality utensils can release harmful substances into your food.
So, make healthy eating your new year’s resolution, and see how much better you feel. Combine it with plenty of physical exercise, and before you know it, you’ll be filled with a greater sense of energy and vitality.