Healthy Tips on Eating – Strategies for Healthy Eating

Swapping out food you already eat for healthier options can be an easy way to improve your nutrient intake. This will also allow for more variety in your diet and help to discover creative and delicious ways to incorporate the foods that will make you feel good from the inside out.

A good swap that will help in so many ways is swapping out sugary drinks and energy drinks for water where you can. Water is one of the most essential nutrients but is so often overlooked, especially with all of the drink options.

However, skipping water can affect our physical and mental well-being. Water helps our bodies function properly, by helping us digest food, regulating our body temperature, helping to remove waste and lubricating our joints for better movement.

We should consume 2 litres of water every day, depending on factors including our weight and what activities we get up to. An easy way to get more water in is to make sure you take a water bottle everywhere you go. Set yourself goals to drink a certain amount each hour. If you struggle with plain water, add some cut-up fruit or diet cordial to give it a bit more flavour.

Another example is when we have fruit, an apple a day is good, better is leaving the skin on and best is getting in 2 serves of fruit every day. If you find yourself getting too full trying to get in your fruits and vegetables, you can combine your fruit and vegetable intake into a smoothie.

You can see that it takes a lot of different things to fuel our bodies, and the key to being able to tick off all those essential nutrients is variety! Some foods are more nutrient-rich than others, and incorporating the best foods is where we can help ourselves to achieve our healthy food goals.

Little things like adding canned beans to meals can improve your protein intake, adding nuts to your yoghurt can increase your good fat intake, and swapping your full cream milk for a lighter choice can reduce your saturated fat intake. Little changes daily can make all the difference when it comes to feeding your body the best fuel.

Knowing what is in your food can help you to ensure you are creating nutrient-rich meals. The first part of this is being knowledgeable in what types of food fuel our bodies well, and how to incorporate those foods into our meals daily.

Following on from knowing what food is good for us, is knowing what to do with it. Learning how to cook is a great skill! Knowing how to cook not only allows us to make healthy meals for ourselves and our loved ones but also teaches us about nutrition and portion control.

Cooking a meal from start to finish is a huge accomplishment and helps us to become more aware of the impact of food on our physical and mental health. Planning and making a meal involves researching recipes, going shopping and using skills like chopping, measuring and multi-tasking with different parts of meals. Cooking involves many essential skills that contribute as a whole to independent living.

Knowing the basics of cooking will help you to be confident to explore different cuisines, create your own dishes and plan your meals. Being able to meal prep for easy access will also help you to stop reaching for the ease of packaged and processed foods that don’t always have the fuel that your body needs.

Having an understanding of what a balanced diet looks like and which foods provide the most energy and nutrients can be invaluable for making healthier choices throughout the day.

Being educated on what healthy food choices look like is a huge advantage. There is a lot of misinformation out there on social media with a lot of diets and food trends promising miracle transformations and cures for weight loss. One of the most frustrating things for people is the number of conflicting messages and contradictory pieces of advice out there when it comes to being healthy.

Learning what to look for on the back of the packaging and knowing what the serving size of any food looks like is a great starting point.

To start with, the terms can limit our ideas about what good food is. Rather than deciding if a food is “healthy” or “unhealthy”, it might be better to judge foods on how nutritionally beneficial they are and how they make you feel afterwards.

Usually when we look online at “healthy diets” the goal is to lose weight and eat fewer calories, but it is more important to make these changes a lifelong goal and to aim for overall improved health, so you shine from the inside out.

Chatting with a professional about making these changes to your eating habits can give you great starting points and provide guidance when it comes to navigating nutrition.

It is important to seek support on a healthy food journey because it can help to provide motivation and accountability. Having someone to talk to and support you can be invaluable in achieving your goals. Seeking out the opinions of registered dietitians who specialize in healthy eating habits can be incredibly helpful when trying to make positive changes.

Your dietitian will be able to answer questions about nutrition and offer individualized plans that are tailored to your needs. They may also recommend certain types of foods that could be beneficial for your health journey.

Surrounding yourself with friends or family who are also committed to making healthier lifestyle changes can help provide encouragement during those times when it becomes difficult. We all need support at some point when we embark on such a journey, so don’t hesitate to reach out and ask for help if needed!