To set yourself up for success, try to keep things simple. Eating a more balanced diet doesn’t have to be complicated. Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories, for example, think of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. Focus on minimizing packaged and heavily processed foods and opting for more fresh ingredients whenever possible.
Prepare more of your own meals. Cooking more meals at home can help you take charge of what you’re eating and better monitor exactly what goes into your food. You may find that you feel less tired, bloated, and irritable, and don’t exacerbate symptoms of depression, stress, and anxiety.
Add balance to your diet. When changing your dietary habits, it’s important to focus on making changes that help improve the overall quality of your diet. Replacing saturated fats with healthy fats (such as switching fried chicken for grilled salmon) can make a positive difference to your health. Switching animal fats for refined carbohydrates, though (such as switching your breakfast bacon for a donut), won’t lower your risk for heart disease or improve your mood.
Read the labels. It’s important to be aware of what’s in your food as manufacturers often include ingredients in packaged food that your body just doesn’t need.
Focus on how you feel after eating. This will help foster healthy new habits and tastes. The more balanced and nutritious your food, the better you’ll likely feel after a meal.
Drink plenty of water. Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many of us go through life dehydrated—causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated may also help you to eat less.
Moderation: important to healthy eating
What is moderation? In essence, it means eating only as much food as your body needs. You should feel satisfied at the end of a meal, but not stuffed. For many of us, moderation means eating less than we do now. But it doesn’t mean eliminating the foods you love. Eating bacon for breakfast once a week, rather than every day, for example, could be considered moderation.
Try not to think of certain foods as “off-limits.” When you ban certain foods, it’s natural to want those foods more, and then feel like a failure if you give in to temptation. Start by increasing your mindfulness around those foods. Does your body want certain food or do you just eat out of habit? How do different foods make you feel after you eat them?
Think smaller portions. Serving sizes have ballooned recently. When dining out, choose a starter instead of an entree, split a dish with a friend, and don’t order supersized anything. At home, visual cues can help with portion sizes. Your serving of meat, fish, or chicken should be the size of a deck of cards and half a cup of mashed potato, rice, or pasta is about the size of a traditional light bulb. If you still feel hungry at the end of a meal, check in with what you need to feel satisfied—and ry to fill up on nutritious options, such as greens or fruit, rather than choosing heavily processed foods.
Take your time. It’s important to slow down and think about food as nourishment rather than just something to gulp down in between meetings or on the way to pick up the kids. It actually takes a few minutes for your brain to tell your body that it has had enough food, so eat slowly and stop eating before you feel full.
Eat with others whenever possible. Eating alone, especially in front of the TV or computer, often leads to mindless overeating.
Be mindful about snacking. While snacking can help to keep you going during the day between meals, it can also be a crutch when you are bored or stressed. Try to make balanced choices for snacks, that include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, such as apple or crackers with cheese, or yogurt and granola.
Be aware of emotional eating. We don’t always eat just to satisfy hunger. Many of us also turn to food to relieve stress or cope with unpleasant emotions such as sadness, loneliness, or boredom. But by learning healthier ways to manage stress and emotions, you can better maintain a balanced diet.
[Read: Emotional Eating and How to Stop It]
It’s not just what you eat, but when you eat
Eat breakfast, and eat smaller meals throughout the day. A healthy breakfast can jumpstart your metabolism, while eating small, healthy meals keeps your energy up all day.
Try to avoid eating late at night. While the evidence is mixed, some studies have linked late-night eating with weight gain. This may be associated with non-hunger eating. Since many of us view the evening as a time to relax and unwind, it’s easy to become mindless with our eating.
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