Tips for Healthy Eating (That You Can Actually Do!)
We’ve all been there; feeling tired, lazy, and unmotivated. While there might be many potential causes for this, one of the main contributing factors that can lead to fatigue is your diet. A healthy diet is important for so many things: energy, weight, the planet, and, of course, your overall health. That being said, it is not easy to go from eating fast food and processed snacks to eating lean and green! Don’t think you have to make the change overnight. After many, many failed New Year’s resolutions and diets, I’m here to give you some tips on how to make small changes and implement healthier eating into your life.
Make Small Changes
A change in diet, and therefore lifestyle, does not happen overnight. Changing your eating habits can be tough! The key to making long-lasting or permanent changes is to start small. If you give up eating worse-for-you food cold turkey, you are more likely to give up on your new healthy eating and revert back to your old habits. Try starting with one food group, then as you adjust to the changes, moving on to another food group. For example, maybe instead of eating fast food fries, you make crispy, baked potato wedges at home. You wouldn’t need to change anything else in your diet immediately until you adjusted to this first change. Or, alternatively, you could try subbing your normal bowl of ice cream for a small piece of chocolate. Not too bad, right? Pick one not-so-great-for-you food and find a healthier alternative. Small changes are easier to implement!
Meal Prep
A big downfall for many people is eating out, particularly while at work or after a tiring day. The key to overcoming this, as well as to ensure you are eating healthy and wholesome foods, is to meal prep at the beginning of your week. Meal prepping comes with more benefits than just one; not only can you make healthy foods, but having pre-cooked food ready to go will save you time throughout your week to do more activities you enjoy. When you meal prep, try choosing healthy options such as lean proteins and vegetables. Putting your pre-made meals into individual containers can help you eat a healthy serving size rather than overeating. Another plus to meal prepping is that if you work from an office, you can just grab a meal in the morning and go!
Look at Ingredients
Even if you don’t immediately cut unhealthy ingredients from your diet, you can start by just looking at the ingredients on the foods you purchase. Making yourself aware of what is in your food, and therefore going into your body, can be very motivating to start cutting out those harmful ingredients! See the next tip for a way to help with this.
Use Technology
There are many apps that can help you transition to a healthier diet. One of my personal favorite categories are apps that allow you to scan the barcode of foods and immediately see a list of potentially harmful ingredients in the food, along with a health rating. Yuka is a great example of an app in this category! Another potentially helpful category of apps can be food journals. These apps are particularly helpful when you have digestive issues and are trying to determine the culprit of your tummy troubles. Keeping track of the foods you eat can also make you more aware of what you’re putting in your body.
Give Yourself Time
My final tip for transitioning to a healthier-eating-lifestyle is to give yourself time, both literally and figuratively. Making a life transition does take time! Take advantage of those small steps. However, having time back in your day can also help you to have the time needed to meal prep, exercise, research ingredients, and do all of the other things to live a healthier lifestyle. One way to get some time back for these things is to find help with household chores like cleaning, lawn care, and moving. If you’re moving or redecorating, check out Page Relocation. These commercial movers Atlanta and residential movers in Canton are top knotch, have great reviews, and go above and beyond during their moves. second way to motivate yourself to spend time on making the transition is to find a buddy to do it with you. Having a friend making changes alongside you can give you motivation and purpose!
Transitioning to eating healthier can be very rewarding and doesn’t have to be painful. By making small changes in your daily habits, you can make huge changes in your lifestyle.
Shout out to MoversBoost for collaborating. MoversBoost is a marketing agency for movers offering leads and digital offerings.