Diet Tips To Stay Healthy
As winter is slowly coming to an end, you might be turning your attention to summer and the bikini season. If you’ve put on a bit of weight during the colder months, you don’t need to worry. There’s plenty of time to get your eating habits fixed and lose a bit of weight while eating healthily. Here are a few essential tips to guarantee you lose weight without harming your mind and body.
The Problem with Diets
When people start dieting, they generally start restricting the foods they eat. While most people cut from the right things, such as sugars and starchy foods, simply eating less can mean you don’t get enough nutrients. Therefore, a strict diet could mean you actually become less healthy, as you don’t get vitamins and vital minerals.
Furthermore, healthy living isn’t just about how your body feels, but how your mind feels. Limiting foods, turning down opportunities to hang out with friends and getting used to strict calorie limits are all things that can bring down the mood. If your mood goes down, you have more chances of failing your diet.
Limit Processed Foods
The first thing to staying healthy and ensuring you get essential nutrients is all about ditching those processed foods. Ready meals and processed foods will have less nutrients and vitamins, and they will have a lot more sugar.
While the different power bars, such as granola or nut bars, might seem low in calories, it’s actually better to just snack on carrot sticks, nuts and even cheese. These so-called real foods will keep the hunger away and ensure you get enough nutrients.
You can find great, organic food online. Organicfood.com.au has information on a wide variety of vegetables and meat producers for organic food, and you can be sure the food hasn’t been processed and therefore lost all of its nutritional value.
Don’t Starve
Diet shouldn’t be equated with starvation. You shouldn’t feel constantly hungry on your diet, although you might feel a bit different as you change your eating habits for the first time. Listen to your body, and understand when it is actually hungry and out of energy from the times when you just want something out of habit.
Drink a glass of water before you start eating. If you are actually hungry and lacking of energy, the water might not take away the hunger and you can then eat something healthy, such as a bit of fish and vegetables.
If you are busy and don’t have time cooking, you can consider having the occasional meal replacement food items. You can check out the wide collection of this at Vitacost.
Eat a Varied Diet
You might be a big fan of keeping things simple and eating the things you know how to cook, but you should keep your diet as varied as possible. While eating broccoli everyday is better than having a scoop of ice cream instead, you also want to swap around the ingredients on your plate to guarantee you get vitamins in a balanced manner.
Your main food categories of real food should include plants – vegetables, fruits and legumes – and quality protein – chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna and halibut. You can then add some healthy fats for satiety and vitamins. Good options include coconut oil, olive oil and different nuts, such as macadamia nuts.
If you’re not used to eating a lot of different vegetables or different meats, then browse online food stores and get used to the different products and order small quantities to get familiar with the taste.
Remember to Have Fun
Don’t become a recluse just because you are on a diet. It’s important you go on with your life and have fun, as it can give you more positive energy to continue with your diet.
Try to come up with new ideas for hanging out with your friends, if you normally just eat out or spend time at the pub. You could plan a picnic and pack healthier foods in the basket. Get out to the local park and play a game of football or cricket instead of eating out. Travel and explore your local areas by visiting museums and galleries.
If you do go out, don’t think a little slip here and there has to ruin your progress. If you end up eating 80% of the week healthily, then a 20% slip is unlikely to ruin your progress. Remember that dieting is a journey and it is about the overall trend, not the one day you ended up eating ice cream.
The above advice will hopefully make it easier to maintain your health while on a diet. The key is to create a plan, eat a varied diet and do things that make you happy and which don’t involve food. If you stay positive, then you will make healthier choices and stay motivated to continue with your new healthier lifestyle!