3 HEALTHY EATING STRATEGIES THAT WORK FOR EVERYONE
Last week I shared some tips for creating healthy habits that stick. This week, I’m sharing 3 simple, attainable, foundation building strategies you can start doing today, to help you nurture healthy eating habits.
Healthy eating is a bit of a loaded term. After all, what’s healthy for one person may not be healthy for the next. Diet is not one size fits all, what and how you eat should be as unique as you are, but there are some guiding principles that seem to work for most people.
The following healthy eating strategies work for everyone because they are effective and reliable and form a solid foundation to build on.
#1 Plan Your Weekly Meals
Planning and prepartion are your best allies in life. When it comes to your work, you would never walk into a presentation or meeting unprepared, yet when it comes to meal time, most of us wait until we’re hungry (or worse hangry) to decide what to eat and well that’s a recipe for disaster.
Studies show that we make poor decisions when we’re hungry. A rise in ghrelin, the hunger hormone, causes us to act impulsively and make irrational choices. Have you ever gone grocery shopping on an empty stomach? I have and it never bodes well. I’ve been known to leave the supermarket munching on a bag of potato chips. Proof that I am human afterall.
Having a weekly plan not only helps you eat better, it also saves you money and helps minimize food waste. You’re less likely to make impulse purchases, stick to your shopping list, and use up all the food you buy if you have a plan in place. It’s a win win win.
#2 Get Cooking
Home cooking is your best bet for healthy eating. Research has proven that people who cook at home are more likely to eat healthy, because they have more control over what goes into their meals. It may be easier and more convenient to grab take out, open up a can or pop a ready made meal in the microwave, and it’s certainly ok to do that sometimes, but it shouldn’t be the norm for anyone to live and eat that way. More home cooked meals usually means healthier choices, less fast food, more vegetables and less sugar.
Busy lifestyles can be a barrier to cooking homemade meals, especially for those who aren’t used to cooking an dfeel overwhelmed by the idea but there are ways that even the busiest person can get cooking.
If you’re starved for time, keep it simple, you don’t have to cook like an award winning chef; prepare some or all of your meals in advance and keep them stored in the refrigerator or freezer; make extras when you do have time to cook and use them in future meals; learn to read labels and stock your pantry and freezers with minimally processed and nutrient dense foods that can make meal preparation quicker.
#3 Eat More Vegetables
We all know we should be eating our vegetables. Everyone and their grandmother has told us and yet, it can be really easy to go a whole day with very few if any vegetables on our plates. We have fruit or toast in the morning, some pasta for lunch, chicken and potatoes for dinner (yes potatoes are vegetables, but not the kind I’m talking about).
Vegetables, from all the colours of the rainbow, are THE superfoods you need in your diet every day and in as many meals as possible. They are loaded with fiber and micronutrients that keep the body functioning and thriving. Every colour group has something unique to offer, in terms of fiber and phytonutrients so the more colours you eat the more you'll benefit from nature's goodness which is why we are often told to "Eat the Rainbow".
I’ve been at this for over 20 years and a meal isn’t complete for me if my plate isn’t half full of vegetables. The best advice I can give you here is to start by adding a tray of roasted mixed vegetables at dinner time. Make plenty, from as many of the colour groups as you can find, and add them to a salad the next day.
Once you’ve built a solid foundation of healthy eating habits and practices, it becomes infinitely easier to strive for more. Healthy habits are like languages, the more you pick up, the easier it gets to pick up another. Layer by layer, one behaviour at at time, your healthy eating habits will become second nature and your wellness vision will become a reality.
If you need some support and guidance to adopt healthier eating habits and make your wellness vision a reality, don’t be afraid to reach out for a free no obligation discovery call to learn more about holisticniss coaching and if it’s right for you.
