How to Start Eating Healthier

Realizing that it’s important to eat healthy foods and to cut back on unhealthy foods seems obvious to many. However, eating healthier is often easier said than done. With so many delicious foods that are unfortunately high in fats and sugars, it can be hard to resist those types of foods. Being able to form good eating habits now will greatly benefit you later down the road, so why not start to create these good habits? In this blog, we will go over some helpful ways to start eating healthier!

1. Understanding Food Groups

Being able to understand what nutrients you need is heavily crucial to actually not just becoming healthier, but feeling healthier. It’s easy enough to know and understand that eating foods like fruits and vegetables are beneficial for your health, but it’s important to know the proportions of each food group that you need. Luckily, this information is easy enough to find on the web. Typically, there are five general food groups that you need to be able to consume from; this includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins, and dairy.

Each food group has their own specific proportions of how much should be consumed, but more importantly, if you understand each food group and start to eat healthy foods within those five groups, that’s a huge step towards eating healthier. Some actionable tips include to consume more fruits and vegetables, limiting unhealthy and artificial foods (examples include candies, chips, sodas, etc.), and to consume more foods with protein and whole grains. Examples of these foods can be found nearly anywhere. Lastly, be sure to know your proportions! Don’t consume too much of one food; it’s important to eat in moderation.

2. Resist Unhealthy Foods & Drinks

This tip seems obvious; consuming unhealthy foods and drinks is clearly detrimental to your health. But, if this is the case, then why do some of us still continue to go somewhat overboard on consuming unhealthy items? The answer is pretty clear; because we like those foods and drinks. When we figure out we like something, in this case, unhealthy foods, it’s only natural to want more and more of it.

One easy way to be able to resist these unhealthy foods and drinks that we love, is to simply not bring it inside the home. Oftentimes, it’s convenient for us to grab that sugary, cold soda from our fridge, or to chow down on a pack of cookies from our pantry. This convenience makes it way too easy for us to fall into the temptations of eating unhealthy food. By not even bringing those types of foods and drinks into our homes, it’s harder for us to eat unhealthy food. We can simply buy healthy foods from our local grocery stores, and if those are the only types of food in the house, then we will naturally be forced to form the habits of consuming healthy foods and drinks.

Wrapping Up

Consuming healthier foods and drinks isn’t actually too difficult if you create a plan and fully execute the plan, which is our final tip: create a plan on how you want to eat healthier, and even include why you want to eat healthier. It’s immensely harder to just start eating healthier overnight without any goals or a lack of understanding. By creating a plan and always remembering why you want to eat healthier, this will increase your likelihood of being able to commit to your ambitions, all while taking steps towards a healthier life. I wish you good luck on your healthy journey!