Five Healthy Eating Habits to Implement Into Your New Years Resolutions
DISCLAIMER - If you have any pre-existing health conditions, ALWAYS check with your doctor before making any dietary changes. If you notice any negative changes in your body after changing your habits, consult your doctor.
We all have our New Years resolutions. While some are certainly easier to keep up throughout the year than others, changing your eating habits has always been among the more difficult. The simple truth is that changing your entire set of dietary habits on a dime is nearly impossible. However, this doesn't mean that there aren't things that you can do to have a healthier relationship with food. Implementing small changes over time has proven to be the easiest route to adopting healthier eating habits, and as it would turn out, some of those small changes can be fairly simple to embrace.
Here are five healthy eating habits to implement into your New Years resolutions.
Reduce
Portion Sizes
Adjusting your portion sizes is one of the easiest things you can do to improve your relationship with food. Pay attention to serving sizes listed in the nutritional facts of your food, and make an effort to understand how that affects how much of that food you should be eating per meal. Try visualizing your portions; think about what a typical portion that you eat of a certain food looks like, and then cut that in half. The truth is, most of us are eating almost double of every food that we eat than we actually need.
Eat
Vegetables
Ensure that with every meal that you eat, at least half of your plate is vegetables. Vegetables are a very diverse food group, and there's plenty of yummy veggies out there that make a great addition to most meals. Eating vegetables is vital to healthy eating, so making sure that half of your plate consists of vegetables is one of the best things you can do to improve your habits. Another great thing that you can do is to always eat your vegetables first. This makes it so that you will get a full serving of vegetables with every meal before getting full on other foods.
Drink
Water
Drinking water is one of the best things you can do to be healthier. Water is key to absorbing food and nutrients, so drinking water with every meal will help your body tolerate healthier foods better and reduce upset stomachs. Drinking a full glass of water with every meal will greatly improve the way that your body processes foods, and will also help you feel generally healthier.
Think
About Dieting Differently
Around 40-50% of people are trying to lose weight, and around 10% of people are on some form of diet. Going on a diet is something that most people will do during some point in their lives, but diets can be an extremely difficult undertaking, and most people don't make those dietary changes permanent. If you are going to start dieting, you should think of it as more of a permanent lifestyle change rather than a temporary change. Look for permanent changes that you can make over time, rather than immediately making a slew of changes that will only last a month or two. Cutting out specific items, such as soda, sweets, or fried foods, can be much easier habits to keep as opposed to major sweeping changes to your overall diet.
Reduce
Snacking
Snacking can be a very hard habit to kick, especially in the current era where junk foods are such a major component of most peoples' pantries. While snacking should be mostly avoided, there are some changes you can make to your snacking habits to make it less detrimental. The best thing you can do is eliminate grazing, or passive snacking when you aren't actually hungry. Most snacks are very calorie dense, and have little nutrients. This makes it easy to eat very large portions of these snacks. Think about potato chips; it's always near impossible to put the bag down. Look for healthier snacks that you can eat less of, such as nuts, fruits, or yogurt. Avoid things such as chips, high sugar snacks, or even granola bars, which are often shockingly high in sugar.
We hope that these tips were informational and
useful in helping you keep up on those New Years Resolutions!
Again, always remember to seek the advice of your doctor before making any
major dietary changes.