We may be nearly halfway through 2020 (seriously, when did that happen?) but when it comes to healthy food and eating right, it’s never too late to clean up your act.
When people think of healthy eating, they generally think of foods like salad, vegetables, steamed chicken, and other healthy, yet decidedly bland foods.
Healthy eating needn’t be boring, nor need it to be a challenge. If you buy the correct ingredients, and know what you’re doing, eating healthily is if you’ll excuse the pun, a piece of cake.
Healthy food comes in all shapes and sizes and can be prepared in a variety of different ways. To help you get the dream body you’ve always wanted, we’ll now take a look at 6 healthy food tips for eating healthily in 2019 and beyond.
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Don’t go overboard with portions
Most healthy food items that people eat when trying to get fit and healthy are generally low in fat. Because of this, they’re often not as filling as richer foods, so people tend to eat more as they still feel hungry.
If you’re looking to lose body fat, this can be quite dangerous as you run the risk of overeating. When it comes to healthy food and healthy eating, you really can have too much of a good thing.
Everything edible contains calories, and if you eat more calories than your body needs to maintain itself, you will wind up gaining weight. When you dish up your meals, don’t go with enormous-sized portions just to try to fill yourself up.
Instead, use a slightly smaller plate and put slightly less on your plate. If you do still feel hungry after eating, drink a glass of water and wait ten minutes and the hunger should then have subsided.
Eat more vegetables
In terms of healthy foods, you simply cannot go wrong with fresh vegetables. Vegetables are loaded full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and countless other nutrients that do your body the world of good.
Health officials recommend that we consume 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. We recommend that you focus mainly on veggies, as fruits tend to have high fructose sugar contents.
Try to have at least one portion of veggies with each meal. You can add vegetables into your dishes, you can blend them into soups and sauces, you can enjoy them as side dishes, or you can even eat them by themselves.
Vegetables are also rich in fiber, which promotes satiety so you feel full for longer, plus they’re also naturally low in fat and calories, making them great for weight management.
Stop eating processed foods and ready meals
While processed ready meals are convenient for people that are busy during the week, or who simply don’t enjoy cooking, the downside is the fact that they are made with inferior ingredients which are generally considered to be quite unhealthy.
Processed foods are often made from poor quality ingredients and are bulked out with artificial flavorings and preservatives which do the body no good at all.
Ready meals, even those which are marketed as being healthy, are also usually made with poor quality ingredients and often contain artificial preservatives to prolong their shelf life.
Try to eat crunchy foods
Now, before you get too excited, put down the potato chips because we aren’t talking about that type of crunchy. Foods which are soft and mushy tend to be much easier to chew and swallow, so we tend to eat more of them as we can eat them quicker.
If you imagine eating a whole apple, and they imagine that same apple was blended into a puree, which does you think you’d finish eating first?
Foods with crunch and a bit of bite to them require you to chew for longer, keeping your mouth busy for longer and giving you more time to fill up.
Foods such as celery, apples, natural nuts, seeds, raw veggies, baked vegetable snacks and so on, are all very beneficial in this instance. The longer you’re chewing, the more time it will allow your body to realize that it’s full.
Stop avoiding all fats
Some fats such as trans fats and hydrogenated oils are unhealthy and are bad for our health. Other fats however such as monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and even natural saturated fats, are actually incredibly good for us.
Fat is one of three macronutrients, along with protein and carbohydrates. For optimal health and wellness, we need to consume a healthy combination of all three. When it comes to healthy food, a little healthy fat is essential. Good fats help to reduce inflammation in the body.
They also help to promote healthy circulation, reduce LDL cholesterol, promote cardiovascular health, balance your hormones, improve your brain health, prevent heart disease, and plenty more.
There are plenty of great healthy fat sources out there, though some of the most beneficial sources of good fats include: Whole eggs, oily fish (mackerel, sardines, salmon, etc), nuts, nut butter, avocado, olive oil, coconut oil, seeds, grass-fed dairy, and more.
Just be mindful that good fats are still high in calories, and if you do consume too many, you will gain weight. This is where it pays to monitor your daily caloric intakes.
Always have healthy snacks on standby
We’ve all had evenings where, after eating earlier on, we suddenly feel hungry and begin to crave sugary foods and snacks that we know we shouldn’t eat.
Often, people undo days, even weeks’ worth of diet and exercise by binging on junk food snacks when they get the cravings. If you’re a snacker, or if you simply want to ensure that you never go hungry and eat junk, it’s recommended that you fill your kitchen cupboards and refrigerators with plenty of healthy snacks that you can eat right away.
Natural nuts and seeds, for example, work very well as healthy snacks and can be combined with other healthy snack foods like cottage cheese or yogurt, for a healthy snack that won’t cause you to pile on the pounds.
The fruit is another great snack food. Be wary of cereal bars or meal replacement bars, as these are often rich in sugars and/or artificial ingredients. If it comes down to an entire pack of double choc chip cookies or a healthy cereal bar, however, go with the bar if that really is your only option.
