Many experts agree that the key to healthy eating is the tried and tested advice of balance, variety and moderation in your diet. What this means is that you can eat a wide variety of foods without getting too many calories or too much of any one nutrient. Below we provide you with some advice on eating healthy whilst still enjoying the foods that you eat.
1. Your body needs more than 40 different vitamins and nutrients to keep healthy. Unfortunately there is no one food source that can give us all these. The first thing you can do is to look at the food information panels on the foods packaging. this will tell you how much of each vitamin and nutrient is included. It will also tell you how many calories are contain with the food.
2. Eat plenty of whole grains, fruit and vegetables. There have been surveys carried out which show most Americans do not enough of these foods. So take a look through all those cook books you have at home and you may find a recipe that tempts you to try something a little different.
3. Eat moderate portions. Keep them to a reasonable size as it is easier to eat the foods you want and thus stay healthy.
4. Eat Regular meals. Do not skip meals as this can lead to you only binging later on and unfortunately when hungry people tend to forget about good nutrition and will go for the sugar and fat laden snacks instead. You can snack between meals but do not eat too much that your snack in fact becomes an entire meal.
5. Don't cut out your favorite foods completely use them as a reward. If you've managed to eat fruit everyday for a week then treat yourself to your favorite food. But remember moderation is the key forget those supersize meals!
6. Switch to low fat foods. Skimmed and low fat dairy products don't taste much different to the full fat versions. Also try lean cuts of meat. This will quickly help to reduce your fat intake.
As we have said above by switching to smaller portions you can still enjoy your favorite foods. This can be difficult when you are eating out but you can over come it by sharing with a friend or asking to take half the meal away in a doggy bag.
It is important that any changes you make to your diet should be done gradually and do not expect to be able to totally revamp your eating habits overnight. But hopefully the advice on eating healthy provided above will help you on your way to leading a much healthy sort of life.
