Congratulations on embarking on your journey to a healthier body! It’s not going to be easy, so we’re proud of you for starting and hope you can make it to your end goals. A healthy diet is difficult, but with the right tips and motivation to stay, it’s more than possible.
Losing weight, gaining muscles, or just attaining a healthy body can all be achieved by one thing—eating healthy. And that means getting rid of excessive fast and junk food consumption and hello to fresh ingredients like fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, and more. It also means not eating as much since you need to be on a calorie deficit!
We know this is difficult, which is why we have ten tips below for you to stay on a healthy diet.
1. Drink Plenty of Water
It’s easy to misconstrue being thirsty as being hungry. So, before you dive into your next snack or meal, take a sip of water first. If you’re still hungry after, then you’ll have less room for food in your tummy because of all that water sloshing around. If the hunger goes away, then you’ll know you’re just thirsty.
If water isn’t your thing, try infusing it with fruits or having a cup of tea. You could also eat water-rich fruits and vegetables for extra hydration!
2. Don’t Eat a Lot at Night
The worst time to eat is late at night when you’re unwinding after a long day. Plop yourself on the couch in front of the TV, and before long, you’re finishing a whole tub of ice cream or an entire sleeve of cookies. It’s just so much likelier to mindless eat since you don’t want to do anything else but relax.
So, try your best to not eat at night. Make it harder by cleaning and wiping down the kitchen. If you’re really hungry, go for a low-calorie snack like some crackers.
3. Indulge in Your Favorite Foods
Being on a diet doesn’t mean saying goodbye to your favorite unhealthy foods altogether! It just means having to control your portions and not eating a lot of them in a given time. For example, instead of eating a whole package of chocolate chip cookies, you can just have one once in a while! Or, instead of eating a big bag of Doritos, you can have one of those fun-sized ones.
4. Eat Several Small Meals a Day
If you’re having trouble limiting your calories, then consider having four or five small meals instead of three meals a day. That way, you can never be hungry and are less likely to overeat. Just make sure you do most of your eating during the day. Your body needs a couple of hours to prepare for bedtime, and that’ll be hard to do with a full stomach.
5. Have Protein in Every Meal
Proteins feel heavy and bulky in the stomach, making you feel full much quicker and longer. It also serves as the building blocks for your muscle—if you didn’t know, the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns to maintain them!
Great sources of protein include meats (e.g., beef, chicken, seafood), legumes (e.g., chickpeas, beans), dairy (e.g., milk, cheese), and eggs.
6. Use Lots of Spice
Add some spice to your life by adding spices to your food! These will make your food extra flavorful and tasty and will leave you satisfied for much longer. This will also trick you into thinking you’re eating more than you actually are. Eating healthy doesn’t always have to be eating bland!
7. Stock Up on Convenient Food Items
We know how hard it can be to cook tasty, healthy food all the time. With all the prepping and cooking and washing up, making a meal from scratch can take hours! That’s why many of us tend to get takeout or do a drive-through when we’re feeling lazy.
Instead, have lots of easy-to-prepare meals on hand. Fruit and vegetables you can eat raw are great for this. You can also have pasta and jarred pasta sauce so you can whip something up in a jiffy, or even just some healthy cereal you can add a splash of milk to.
8. Order from the Kid’s Menu
While it might seem embarrassing to order from a kid’s menu, there’s actually nothing bad about it. In fact, many kids’ menu options are just regular menu options with smaller portions. This is perfect if you want to mind how much you’re eating at a restaurant.
9. Substitute Carbohydrates with Vegetables
One cup of rice has around 200 calories. One cup of pasta has around 130 calories. One bowl of cornflakes has around 150 calories. Now, if you instead replaced most of your carbohydrates with low-calorie vegetables like broccoli, asparagus, or celery, you’re down by a lot of calories. Imagine how much weight you could lose in a week, a month, or a year!
10. Never Skip Breakfast
People think that by skipping meals you end up losing weight. Breakfast is supposedly the easiest meal to skip since you can just hop out of bed and head straight to work!
And while losing weight by skipping meals technically is true, it’s not very realistic. What usually happens is that you skip breakfast and end up being famished for the rest of the day. You have a big lunch and dinner, and you might even have some snacks during your break.
This is why people who often skip meals or eat too little calories end up failing their diets. To stay in a healthy diet, you must follow expert tips and be choosy with what you eat, not restrict!
On top of that, breakfast is when your digestion and metabolism are at their peak! You absorb the most nutrients right after you wake up. So, take advantage of that and eat your breakfast. It’d be even better if you picked an awesome breakfast from a popular cafe in Santa Monica!
