Our diet has an integral role in our health. It’s our main source of nutrients, minerals, and vitamins, as well as our primary energy source during exercise and recovery from activity. It also provides us with a steady supply of essential fuel for the body to function optimally throughout the day, week, month, year, or life cycle in general. In this article, we’ll look at some of the different ways you can get start eating better to improve your health.
Open Your Palette
Along with regulating your calorie intake, eating healthy also means eating fruits and vegetables. As kids, many of us dreaded greens on our plates, like peas and broccoli. But as an adult, it’s time you face those fears and start opening up your palette to different types of food. Unless you have severe reactions — like allergies, to certain types of food, you can include portions of foods you weren’t a big fan of in the past. Don’t forget that you can use seasonings (in moderation!) to make the experience more pleasant in the beginning. The more you eat whatever food that you’re not a fan of, the more you’ll end up being okay with it. If you think about it, the acquired taste can also mean you need to eat something until your taste buds get used to it.
Learn to Cook
Not everyone can be a Michelin star chef, but you can definitely still try your hand at cooking. Cooking is an important skill to learn if you want to eat healthy because it gives you control. You can decide where you’ll get the ingredients in your recipe, how much salt you’ll put, and whether you want that much greens or just a small bunch for now.
What’s more, the better you get at cooking, the more varied and sophisticated your diet can be. You’ll no longer be stuck with just simple stews and quickly fried stuff, you can eventually try your hand at baking and many other cooking techniques.
Or Try Vegan Food Apps
If you do not have much interest in cooking, or if you do not have the time for it, you can still get healthy food delivered to your doorstep. There are now a lot of vegan food apps available for you to try, so go ahead and tap away. This is a great way to get more into a healthier diet because the commitment level isn’t as heavy as going completely vegan so suddenly.
Go On and Try Out That Restaurant
There are a lot of healthy options out there- you just need to find out where they are! Don’t be afraid to try out different kinds of restaurants, especially different kinds of cuisine. You’ll be surprised by how healthy some cuisines inherently are. Consider trying Afghan cuisine, as it offers a lot of healthy carb sources. Or try out Chinese vegetarian dishes, you might fall in love with vegetables after that. You’ll never know what kind of cuisine and dishes you’ll fall in love with, so just keep trying them out.
Grocery List Overhaul
If you’ve decided to work on your cooking skills to help you eat better, then that means you’ll also have to look at what you usually buy at the grocery and think about what needs to be changed. Make sure that you now always include veggies and fruits on your list, and choose the healthier options for other foods as well, like whole wheat instead of white bread. You can also visit your local farmers’ market to get your supply of fresh produce. It can be a fun experience where you can connect with your community and be educated on the food you put on your plate.
Have Your Best Friend Join You
While some people are okay pushing through a new endeavor all on their own, there are also those who find more motivation to start (and keep going) if they have friends with them. Your best friend can inspire and drive you to eat a healthier diet. You can challenge each other if you are both competitive, you can be each other’s police whenever you’re out and tempted to eat unhealthy food, and you can also be there for each other when the challenge feels tough at times.
Eating healthy needs dedication and consistency because you don’t want to eat healthy for just a couple of weeks, then revert to eating just whatever, and then try all over again. This is no longer just a vicious cycle, it’s a lifestyle change. To do this, you need to incorporate healthy options and solutions into your routines and systems.
