Healthy eating is ensuring a good balance of the food you eat to keep your body in tip top health. Sometimes foods that are touted as healthy, really aren’t and sometimes it’s the way we cook the food that makes it unhealthy. Confusing isn’t it? So some basic tips for healthy eating might make it clearer for you.
From the World Health Organisation
- A healthy diet helps to protect against malnutrition in all its forms, as well as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.
- Unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are leading global risks to health.
From the British Nutrition Foundation
- A good diet is important for our health and can help us feel our best – but what is a good diet?
- Apart from breastmilk as a food for babies, no single food contains all the essential nutrients the body needs to stay healthy and work properly. For this reason, our diets should contain a variety of different foods, to help us get the wide range of nutrients that our bodies need. This is illustrated by the UK’s healthy eating model – the Eatwell Guide.
Let’s begin
Table of Contents
We all know we should eat healthily but it’s not so easy when we constantly see unhealthy foods that are designed to appeal to us. We know they taste good because they are designed that way too. They have sugar, salt and fat in unhealthy quantities to make us crave them. They are designed to be addictive. They are also marketed in such a way as to appeal to our triggers, such as comfort and happiness. Try watching a food advert analytically.
When you eat healthily, you’ll have energy all day, get the vitamins and minerals you need, stay strong for activities you enjoy and maintain a healthy weight.
The main basic ideals
1. Don’t skip any meals
Eating 3 meals a day with healthy snacks in between if required is the ideal way to maintain your energy and a healthy weight.
When you skip meals and become hungry and it can also make you feel tired because your body doesn’t have the fuel to run it. You are then much more likely to reach for unhealthy foods like sugary snacks to boost your energy.
Why?
Because your body demands a quick fix for hunger and tiredness and sugar will produce that temporarily. The boost tends to be short lived though and you quickly crave more of the same.
If you are away from home for any length of time, take food with you or check where you can buy healthy food from.
2. Learn how to cook food for health
Instead of deep or shallow frying, try grilling, stir frying, microwaving, baking, and even boiling. You should also try fresh or maybe dried herbs and spices to add flavor to your food. Before you eat any type of meat, make certain to trim the fat and skin off it.
A quick and easy cook book. Click HERE!
Sticking with fresh food is much better for your body and general wellbeing and even your mental health. Eating too much processed food and eventually clog up your system and even affect your thought processes. Plus the more of it you eat, the more you crave it.
3. Avoid sugar
Drinks that contain sugar are a serious source of empty energy. What this means, is that the drinks contain tons of energy that your body might not need, and it doesn’t contain any vitamins or minerals. If you plan to drink sugary drinks, don’t go overboard – limit yourself to 1 each day.
It is well known that sugar is very addictive, some scientists say it is more addictive than cocaine.
Sugar adds calories and can damage your teeth too.
4. Avoid thinking about diets
My opinion is that all diets should be banned. The first thing that most people want to do when deciding to diet is eat more.
Much better to gradually change what you eat and the way you cook. You like burgers? Go for the 5% fat ones, same with minced beef. There are now many healthier options that taste just as good. Find recipes online to cook healthier versions of your favourite takeaway.
If you mainly eat healthily eating a sugary product every so often won’t do any harm, just don’t let it become a habit.
Most of all, remember that everything in moderation works well and keeps you healthier.
What to avoid
Sugar of course, as above.
Fatty foods is an obvious one.
Processed foods because they tend to be bulked out with sugar, fats and salt.
Check the labels on foods, if they have long names you have never heard of, avoid them.
Smoothies! I expect that surprises you. When you make a fruit smoothie the fruit is crushed and releases the sugar instantly. When you eat the fruit the sugars are inside the plant walls which our bodies have to break down and are therefore the sugar is released more slowly.
Add vegetables to a smoothie to make it healthier with just a small amount of fruit to sweeten. It’s a good way to get more vegetables into children too.
Best things to eat
Fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and if a meat eater, fresh meat. If you like to eat some cakes, cookies and desserts, make them yourselves to avoid all the additives. Plus if you search, there are usually healthier versions of most recipes.
It’s also good to remember that our bodies need a certain amount of fats and there needs to be a balance of good and bad. Avoid fat free and diet foods, they often increase other unhealthy ingredients to replace what has been removed. Not all do but many do.
So that’s it for Basic Tips For Healthy Eating
Has it helped you, made it clearer? Have I missed anything out? If so let me know in the comments.
Let’s face it we all rush for that quick fix when we are hungry and in a hurry. At times too, it can be easier to get a takeaway after a hard day. If it’s occasional, it’s not that bad. If it’s something you do a lot, you would be better to plan meals ahead to save the temptation.
If you have an unhealthy diet, then make small changes gradually. Trying to change everything at once can be stressful and counterproductive.
A good thing to remember is that what you eat now dictates your health and activity levels as you get older.
HI, I like your advice that ALL diets should be banned, as for most including myself they are never a sustainable option in the long term and far better to actually change your eating habits as you reccomend. There are some great tips here so I will be bookmarking your site for future reference. Thanks.
Thank you Dan, glad you liked that phrase.
Having done much research and having tried out a big company I came to the conclusion that it is big business and therefore they are not invested in helping people stay at their healthy weight and living a sustainable healthy lifestyle.
Most overweight people seem to have gone from one ‘diet’ to another, always losing some and gaining more. It becomes a disastrous cycle of failure, constantly damaging self esteem.
Thank you for commentng.
Your tips for healthy eating are logical. If we all followed the basic rules and had the knowledge of what healthy foods we should eat and when to eat them, we probably would not have the need to follow any diet regiment. Your comment of All diets should be banned, is correct, except that some people need the guideline that diets provide for better or worse. Your advise is easy to follow. Thanks for sharing this article.
Glad you enjoyed the blog post Helen. I feel the only guidance required is a healthy eating guide but the mindset has to be right. You have to be doing it for yourself because you want to.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Thank you for very interesting article. I couldn’t agree more then good, balanced meals are key to healthy life. But its not easy to always cook healthy, especially with kids around. And I must admit that I had no idea that fruit smoothies are not as healthy as I expected. Im often doing it for desert instead of sweets, but looking on your post I will try to add vegetables to it.
Glad you enjoyed the post.
Adding the right raw veg to smoothies means they get the good stuff without knowing it and you are using less fruit. It’s just making sure you cant taste it.
If you make gravy to go with meals you can liquidise veg and add it to the gravy, it helps to thicken it and adds flavour. The children don’t taste anything different, my daughter does it often.
Thank you for reading and commenting.