How to Eat Healthy in 10 Easy Steps!
Plan Ahead
The key to success in any area in life is good preparation. This means that in order to eat healthily, you should have a plan when you go to the grocery store. Decide on what meals you want to have for the week ahead of time and be intentional about what groceries you buy. When you don’t plan ahead or know what you are having for dinner, it can be easy to fall back into old ways. Wise & Well can help you create perfect grocery lists, and meal plans to ensure your success.
Clean Out Your Pantry
Let’s be honest; if there is a box of cookies or chips in your pantry, you are inevitably going to grab them. If there are items in your pantry that you know don’t contribute to your success, make life easier on yourself and remove the temptation. Even better, replace those items with healthier alternatives! Talk to a Wise & Well health coach today to find out how to swap all your favorite foods for healthier, guilt-free, yet delicious alternatives.
Taste the Rainbow
No, I’m not talking about Skittles or Fruit Loops! I’m talking about incorporating a variety of produce into each meal. The color of produce is attributed to different antioxidants and vitamins, so the more variety you get, the healthier you will be. To save time, I like to buy bags of pre-chopped vegetables. I enjoy making stir fry dishes and roasted veggies as a way to get a lot of variety. The more colorful your plate the better, because not only is it healthier, but food that is more aesthetically appealing always tastes better too!
Learn How To Read Nutrition Labels
And I don’t mean to count calories! We now know that it isn’t so relevant the quantity of calories you consume, but the quality of those calories. If you are trying to lose weight, for example, you would want to watch the simple carbohydrate content or net carbs (subtract the fiber from the total carbohydrates since our body doesn’t have the enzymes to break down fiber it passes through our body without changing). In general, we should all be mindful of the sugar content in food since sugar is linked to many diseases. Most people and especially those with high blood pressure, should also pay attention to the sodium content of food. Ask your Wise & Well health coach about how to read a nutritional label in more detail.
Don’t Deprive Yourself
Rather than focusing on subtracting the unhealthy foods, shift your mindset to focus on adding in good foods to crowd out the less healthy ones. When you have a mindset of depriving yourself of certain foods you enjoy eating, you will be less likely to succeed. You will find that you can enjoy adding healthier foods more than you might have realized, especially if you are not forbidden to indulge in a treat here and there.
Eat This, Not That
Swap unhealthy foods you love for healthier alternatives that you also love! These are some of my favorite swaps: olive oil instead of canola oil, Lakanto monk fruit sweetener instead of sugar, Xylitol Honey instead of real honey if you are watching sugar content, clarified ghee instead of butter, plain yogurt instead of sweetened yogurt, keto cookies instead of chips ahoy, grain-free naturally sweetened granola instead of sugary granola, Banza pasta instead of regular wheat pasta, nut milk or oat milk instead of dairy milk, Lily’s chocolate instead of regular sweetened chocolate, buckwheat or almond flour instead of white flour, Siete grain-free tortillas and tortilla chips instead of corn-based alternatives, Birch Benders pancake mix instead of Bisquick… check out our shop to try some of these options!
Embrace the Kitchen
The best way to eat healthier versions of the things you love is by making them yourself, so you have control of all the ingredients. When you eat out, it can be difficult to determine how healthy the dish actually is since you don’t know how it was prepared. Learning kitchen basics is key to enjoying healthy eating more. Get the Wise & Well cookbook if you need easy healthy recipe inspiration!
…Or Don’t!
If you don’t like cooking, I get it. It can take up a lot of time if you aren’t using good meal prep strategies, and the clean-up is never fun. Thankfully, now there are many meal delivery services that will keep you on track. Many of these services send you a bunch of pre-made meals each week based on your dietary preferences.
Practice Mindfulness
Are you hungry, or are you just bored? Are you hungry, or are you feeling sad? Are you hungry, or are you dehydrated? Learn to pay attention to your body’s signals. Differentiate between hunger and other needs. Ask yourself, “what is my craving trying to tell me?” Often we binge eat for reasons other than feeling hungry. And then, when we are hungry, we often rush through our meal as fast as possible because let’s face it, life is busy. When you stop to chew each bite with mindfulness, you will enjoy your food more and feel satiated sooner. Put your utensil down in between bites. Look at the presentation of the meal; embrace the colors, textures, and aromas. Relish all of it! Savor the nuances of flavor the same way you would savor a fine wine. Only after you’ve swallowed the first bite take another. Be present, focused, and relaxed. Avoid multitasking while eating if possible (I am guilty of doing this too!). If you want tips on incorporating mindfulness into your life in order to have more life satisfaction, ask your Wise & Well health coach today.
Practice Gratitude
Take time to be grateful to those who grew the food, picked it, transported it, sold it, and prepared it. Every meal has a story to tell. How amazing is it that a seed turns into a juicy fruit… that we don’t have to hunt and gather the food ourselves… that our food travels from all over the world to end up on our plates… that our Earth is able to produce such delicious products? We enjoy our food so much more when we remember to be grateful for it.
Bonus Tip!
Schedule a time to speak with a Wise & Well health coach!
