Healthy eating is a fairly broad term and I know it will mean different things to everyone so my aim here is to show you how to improve the quality of your meals if you wish to do so.
If you have a diet that is lacking in good quality nutrient dense foods then the chances are you feel weak and sluggish, don’t sleep well, have no energy and are carrying a bit of excess fat.
A great way to change this is to start eating healthier plus exercising but for this post the focus will be on healthy eating. Most of the time when people want to start eating healthier they try to completely over haul their entire diet at the one time. While this approach is well intentioned it often leads to failure.
Just to clarify eating healthier does not mean you cannot still enjoy chocolate, wine, a takeaway or whatever else you like. In fact a healthy diet should include these if that’s what you like as you are more likely to stay eating well if you can enjoy a treat, just try to keep everything in moderation and the majority of your food from high quality nutrient dense sources (meat, fish ,vegetables, fruit, dairy, grains etc).
Whether your goal is fat loss, feeling better or both it is best to think in terms of long term progress instead of fast results. Most people can get results in 2-3 months but the more impressive feat is maintaining those results for 6-12 months at least. The best way to do that is to focus on building habits, being consistent in your nutrition and training and taking one step at a time.
Some practical steps you can try are as follows:
- Firstly, keep a food diary for a week. Write down everything you eat and drink.
- Then pick one meal and focus on how you could improve it one step at a time.
- Start implementing the changes one at a time and when you are confident enough to move on to the next change do so. A week is a good timeframe but if it takes more than a week then no problem, move at your own pace.
- Once you are happy that you are eating healthier at that meal, pick another and start the process again.
By making small changes one at a time, you will build confidence in your ability to succeed and stop yourself from becoming overwhelmed.
Example: You have a bowl of coco pops, a coffee with two spoons of sugar and a croissant every weekday morning for breakfast and a fry up every Saturday and Sunday morning.
Week 1 = you swap the two spoons of sugar in your coffee for a sweetener.
Week 2 = you swap the croissant for 2 slices of wholegrain bread with real butter or 1 slice of bread and an egg.
Week 3 = you swap the coco pops for Weetabix or porridge with berries/ banana/ any fruit
Week 4 = On Saturday you have grilled rashers and poached eggs on toast and on Sunday you still have the fry up.
With this approach in just 4 weeks you will have dramatically improved the quality of your breakfast and it wont feel like you have had to make huge sacrifices or are on a “diet”. You can still enjoy a fry up once a week while feeling better and becoming healthier.
Then you move on to the next meal and do the same. Once you are happy that you are eating healthier in general you can use the same approach to work on how you eat for your goals ie controlling portion sizes, eating slowly and so on.
You will be still getting results as you go, the only difference is these results are long term as you are creating new eating habits and eating better quality foods.
Give this method a try and if you have any questions or need any guidance feel free to ask below.