Healthy Eating
Femalefirst have looked into the best and easiest ways to eat healthy – with minimum effort! Getting healthy doesn't have to be about spending hours counting calories in foods, cooking perfectly healthy breakfasts, lunches and dinners. A few small lifestyle changes will make will make a huge difference to your waistline.
The first thing is shopping. When you shop for food try to limit the unhealthy foods you buy – or if you can eliminate them all together- this way when your at home if thee foods not there you can’t eat it! If you eat a lot of rice and pasta opt for the brown stuff! Brown rice and pasta is wholegrain which is a lot healthier for you and is easier to digest – so you shouldn’t get bloated after it. The same applies to cereals and bread, make sure you pick the wholegrain types; it will still fill you up as well.
Try to change your milk – instead of having the full fat milk – if this is too thin and you really can’t stand it, there’s always semi-skimmed milk, this is fine. It tastes good and is still better for you.
A lot of people say you should have approx 8 glasses (2 litres) of water a day, which most of us hate the thought of, but there’s good news – it can be any fluids. Ok so were not talking about fizzy pop or alcohol but weak tea, milk, fruit juice and water can all be in your 8 glasses! The best way to make sure you get your 2 litres is to have a big bottle of your favourite water of sugar free fruit juice with you all the time, e.g. when your at work and say to yourself it must be gone by the time you get home. So if you work in an office, keep a bottle on your desk and sip it through-out the day – don’t go home until it’s all gone.
At breakfast time fill your self up, if you don’t have time, make time! Fill your self up with anything healthy; yoghurt's, wholemeal toast, cereal, porridge, fruit or eggs. By having lots for breakfast you will find you won’t have urges to snack in between meals. No matter how busy you are or late Don’t skip the most Important meal of the day.
Keep small healthy snacks in your bag for if you do feel a bit hungry in between meals; things like, nuts, raisins, grapes, carrots, celery, sunflower seeds, an apple or even crab sticks – all of these should give you a slight energy boost as well as doing wonders for your insides and skin.
If you’re a chocoholic and can’t cut it out completely don’t punish yourself for having a little every now and then. To make you feel better try switching from milk chocolate to dark chocolate - Much better for you and less fattening.
To help you get your 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, plan to have a piece of fruit after every meal, including breakfast.
After all that if you still find that you are snacking on crisps, sweets and biscuits in between meals, why not have smaller meals but more of them? There’s no harm in reducing your portions and having more of them, you shouldn’t feel hungry that way. Small meals could be; soups, a brown sandwich, salad, rice, small portion of your favourite brown pasta etc.
The good thing about starting to eat healthy is that after a while of cutting out sugary foods you won’t crave them! Perfect.
Remember not to be too hard on yourself. This could make you feel like eating more unhealthy foods, and you’ll be stuck in a vicious cycle.
Set yourself reasonable goals about your diet, and foods so you know you can achieve them and good luck.
Female First- Heather Cowley