10 Golden Rules for Healthy Eating
Dec 16, 2024
Everyone gives different advice when you’re ready to start a healthier lifestyle. Some people think exercise is the most important thing to improve your wellness, while others focus on self-care. Cut through the noise with a few golden rules for healthy eating. You’ll figure out what’s best for your body and develop lasting good habits.
1. Start With Small Changes
Overhauling your entire diet at one time will feel like a shock to your system. It’s much easier to develop better eating habits when you make gradual changes. The key is giving yourself time. One recent study found it can take anywhere from weeks to months for new habits to stick.
If you want to eat more vegetables, try eating one serving of broccoli every other day. When you’re instinctively incorporating it into your meals, you can easily add another vegetable.
2. Opt for Whole Grains
Grains are an underappreciated part of a well-rounded diet. They provide numerous health benefits and come in a variety of sources. A single serving of whole-grain bread contains 17% of the daily recommended value of fiber. You’ll benefit from extra fiber and gut-regulating micronutrients if you consume more whole grains daily.
3. Stick With Whole Foods
Microwaving a bowl of instant noodles is easy, but processed foods contain lots of chemical ingredients. Whole foods don’t. Processed items won’t get you sick, but they aren’t as helpful for your body as the nutrients in unprocessed foods.
Try replacing one serving of chips each day with a bowl of baby carrots to start getting used to relying more on whole foods in your diet. If you need help, refer to the four levels of the food pyramid to better identify what to include when grocery shopping or meal prepping.
4. Don’t Exclusively Focus on Calories
The total calorie count of a food is the biggest thing on its nutrition label. Assuming that calories play an important role in a better diet makes sense, but you should have a wider definition of healthy eating. You could eat a specific amount of calories but still not get the protein, fats, fiber and vitamins your body needs to thrive. Form each meal around a multinutrient perspective instead of counting calories.
5. Make Meals From Scratch
Boxed meals simplify cooking times, but they don’t often include whole-food ingredients. Processed ingredients can cause lethargy and negative emotions when they’re the majority of your diet.
Make one meal each day from scratch to reduce how many boxed items you buy every week. It helps to determine what recipes you can make without breaking a sweat.
Don’t worry about carving out more time for elaborate dinners, either. You can still use shortcuts to make your kitchen life easier. Try steaming frozen, cubed sweet potatoes in the microwave rather than peeling, washing, chopping and sauteeing them for the same meal. Canned veggies are another option if you don’t have a large freezer.
6. Incorporate Omega-3s Into Your Diet
Remembering the importance of omega-3 fatty acids is one of the most important golden rules for healthy eating. The natural fat provides multiple health-boosting benefits, including reduced cardiovascular disease risk and less joint pain. You can find this nutrient in whole foods like salmon, chia seeds and soybeans. Pistachios are another great source of fatty acids, along with antioxidants your body will use to stay healthy.
7. Ensure Each Meal Contains Fiber
Fiber is a crucial component of your daily diet. It regulates your gut and helps manage your blood sugar spikes while providing long-term health benefits like minimizing your odds of developing diabetes, cancer and intestinal diseases.
Start adding small amounts of fiber to your diet at a time. See how your stomach reacts and gradually add more through whole foods over time. You’ll know you’ve reached the right amount when your bowel movements are regular and you don’t have stomach cramps after meals.
8. Include Your Favorite Foods in Moderation
Restricting yourself from your favorite foods is another common effort people make when they try to eat better. Although your body will benefit from fewer sugary desserts, eliminating what you love to eat might backfire. You may gradually resent your new diet or even develop binge eating habits.
The best diets incorporate your favorite foods in moderation. Instead of eating multiple brownies after dinner, try eating just one. You might eat a doughnut for breakfast twice a week instead of every day. If you don’t permanently cut out what you love to eat, it’s less likely that you’ll get frustrated and give up on healthy eating entirely.
9. Drink Water Every Day
Staying hydrated is crucial for numerous reasons. If you’re trying to eat healthier to manage your blood pressure or lose weight, drinking more water could be one of the best steps in your nutritional journey. Research shows that drinking six glasses of water per day helped people do both of those things in addition to preventing migraines and kidney stones.
Carry a reusable water bottle with you or keep one where you spend the most time, like your workplace. You can also make this gradual diet improvement by replacing one soda each day with a glass of water. It depends on what you currently drink most often. Experts recommend drinking eight glasses per day, but you should make that a long-term goal to ease yourself into a better diet.
10. Check in With a Nutritionist
Improving your diet is a big responsibility. Meet with a nutritionist if you have questions about your progress. Talk with them about the changes you’ve made alongside your health goals. They’ll identify which parts of your diet best serve your needs and where you can make even better changes.
Your doctor can also be a great resource. They might not give the same nutrient-targeted advice as a nutritionist, but your primary care provider knows your health history. They may recommend broad diet improvements you can work toward to improve your long-term health based on your personal risks.
Make Healthy Eating Your New Lifestyle
It’s always important to give yourself time when changing your lifestyle. Pick a strategy and implement it for two weeks. Once it feels instinctive, you can add another change. With time, healthy eating will become a regular part of your lifestyle.