It is easy to fall into bad eating habits such as junk-food binges or emotional eating. This comes as a no surprise considering that convenience often trumps nutritional value.
Including healthy eating habits in your life is essential for supporting your overall well-being. While trendy diets and lifestyle overhauls are popular, small changes and swaps can lead to significant results in the health department.
You’ll always want to consider that your eating habits must boost your energy levels or simply make you feel better inside. It does not, however, need to be grand or overly complicated since you’ll want something practical and sustainable.
Here are 20 dietitian-approved tips to help you eat more healthfully without needing juice cleanses or expensive supplements:
1. Limit Drinks with Added Sugars
Added sugars are lurking in many seemingly healthy drinks, like fruit punch and sports drinks. Unfortunately, consuming too many added sugars has been linked to chronic inflammation, obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and even depression.
Swapping out beverages with added sugars for no-sugar-added choices like water, seltzer water, unsweetened coffee or tea, and even 100% fruit juice in moderation can give your body the hydration it needs without any added sugars.
2. Include Fermented Food in Your Diet
Kimchi, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods not only taste delicious, but they also fuel the body with live probiotics that support our overall health in various ways. To give your body a boost of probiotics, start your day with plain yogurt, enjoy a miso soup at dinnertime, or sip on a kombucha midday for some fermented goodness.
These foods help maintain healthy gut flora, which is crucial for digestion and immune function. Fermented foods are also linked to reduced inflammation and improved mental health. Including them in your diet is a tasty way to enhance your health.
3. Eat 2 to 3 Servings of Low-Mercury Non-Fried Fish Every Week
Fish, especially oily fish like salmon, is a rich source of DHA omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, vitamin B12, and a slew of other important nutrients that support our health. Eating fish is linked to a number of potential health benefits, including a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease.
Including fish in your diet can help improve brain function, reduce inflammation, and support healthy vision. Aim to eat fish like salmon, mackerel, or sardines at least two to three times a week.
4. Swap Out Highly Processed Meat for Fresher Options
Highly processed meats like lunch meats, bacon, and sausage are certainly convenient and incredibly appetizing. However, these meat choices can also be loaded with nitrates, additives that, when heated, can produce potentially cancer-causing compounds.
Many of these meat choices are also loaded with sodium, which can contribute to high blood pressure and other health issues. Choosing nitrate-free and reduced-sodium deli meats, or using fresh cuts of meat like turkey, chicken, and beef, can be just as satisfying to eat.
5. Have a Glass of Milk Every Day
Milk isn’t just for kids. As a staple food that is a perfect accompaniment to chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk is loaded with 13 essential nutrients, including bone-building calcium, protein, and magnesium. Yet, as nutrient-dense as milk is, most adults don’t drink even one glass of this beverage a day.
If milk tends to bother your gut, try lactose-free milk or A2 milk to see if these options help. Incorporating milk into your diet can support bone health and provide essential nutrients for overall well-being.
6. Add Fruit to Your Midday Snack
Since a lower intake of fruit is linked to outcomes like an increased risk of certain cancers, heart disease, and stroke, sneaking in some fruit every day is a smart move. When the 3 PM slump strikes, instead of reaching for sugary candy or caffeine-laden drinks, enjoy fruit as a part of your balanced snack.
7. Add More Vegetables to Your Dishes
Vegetables are one of the best sources of fiber, a nutrient that can help keep your body healthy by supporting gut health and possibly reducing the risk of developing certain cancers. Plus, many veggies are low in calories and can help make dishes a bit more satisfying and flavorful.
Adding vegetables to your dishes doesn’t mean living off of salad every day of the week. You can add extra broccoli to your stir-fry, a handful of spinach in your soup, or diced bell pepper to your scrambled eggs.
8. Avoid Eating in Front of the TV
Your meals are meant to be enjoyed. When you eat while watching TV, you can end up being distracted and ultimately eat more calories while feeling less satisfied.
At the very least, make sure you are not distracted by the TV—or any device—while you are eating to allow you to eat mindfully and pay attention to your body’s cues.
9. Choose BPA-Free Canned Foods
Canned foods like tuna, tomatoes, and beans are convenient foods that can be included in a healthy diet. However, if the cans that your food is stored in contain BPA, a chemical that helps prevent metal corrosion, you may not be eating as well as you think.
Ultimately, if you’re concerned about these materials, choose foods stored in glass or aseptic paper-based boxes.
10. Plan Your Meals
Meal planning can help people eat a healthier diet and reduce the stress of trying to figure out what to eat at the last minute. Taking the time to plan out your meals for the week can help you navigate your healthy eating with ease.
To meal-plan, figure out what you are going to eat for your meals throughout the week. Make yourself a shopping list and prep your ingredients for quick meals for the entire week.
11. Avoid Eating the Same Foods on Repeat
To eat a healthy diet, variety is key. Eating a wide variety of foods will give your body different nutrients and may help prevent nutritional gaps. There are more benefits to food variety; for example, focusing on a variety of healthy foods may reduce the risk of developing metabolic syndrome.
One strategy that many dietitians recommend is to “eat the rainbow,” meaning that people should aim to eat foods that naturally contain a wide variety of colors throughout the week. Purple cabbage, orange carrots, red radishes, and green spinach are all good-for-you foods, and each variety contains a different nutritional composition.
12. Prep Your Veggies
Before you put your groceries away after your shopping haul, prep your veggies before you store them in the fridge. Having chopped onions and sliced cucumbers on hand makes it incredibly easy to add good-for-you vegetables to your dishes or for grab-and-go snacks.
This simple step can save you time during the week and encourage you to eat more vegetables. You can also prepare other healthy snacks, like sliced fruits or pre-portioned nuts, to make healthy choices more convenient.
13. Limit Diet Soda
Intuitively, it makes sense to believe that drinking diet soda is a healthy choice, thanks to the calorie-free sweetness that it provides. However, it turns out that drinking diet soda isn’t as healthy a choice as once thought—or what some advertisements would lead you to believe.
Sipping on the bubbly, sweet-tasting stuff is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease and other health conditions. A good start to reducing your diet soda intake is to replace it with healthier options like water, herbal tea, or naturally flavored seltzer.
14. Limit Fried Foods
There is nothing like biting into a crispy French fry or piece of fried chicken. However, eating too many fried foods is linked to a slew of unsavory health outcomes, including an increased risk of anxiety and depression.
Additionally, regularly eating fried foods increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, with the relationship being linear—meaning your risk of disease goes up the more you eat fried foods. To get that satisfying crunch without the added calories and fat, opt for air-frying or baking your dishes instead.
15. Swap Cocktails for Mocktails
Consuming alcohol can increase the risk of certain types of cancers. However, for some people, doing without an evening cocktail can be a huge life change. Enjoying a mocktail instead of a cocktail is one way to limit or eliminate alcohol intake while still partaking in the ritual of sipping on a delicious beverage.
Mocktails can be made with healthy, non-alcoholic ingredients that still provide a refreshing and enjoyable experience. Experiment with different combinations of fruit juices, sparkling water, and herbs to create your favorite mocktail.
16. Choose Leaner Cuts of Beef
Beef lovers can rejoice knowing that beef can be a part of a healthy diet. Beef is a natural source of iron, protein, zinc, and many other important nutrients.
Although some cuts of beef are on the higher side when it comes to saturated fat, leaner cuts like flank steak, sirloin, and tenderloin are perfectly appropriate to include in a wholesome diet. Pair your lean beef with plenty of vegetables and whole grains for a balanced meal.
17. Beans as a Protein Source
Whether you’re a carnivore or a strict vegan, beans—also known as legumes—can be one of the best foods to include in your healthy diet. They’re a plant-based and economical protein source that is versatile and delicious.
Beans naturally contain fiber, polyphenols (strong antioxidants), and resistant starch, all of which contribute to a lower risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
18. Eat Breakfast
They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Research highlights exactly why this is. Eating breakfast consistently is linked to a greater intake of many nutrients, including folate, calcium, and iron.
Breakfast skippers tend to consume significantly more calories, carbohydrates, total fat, saturated fat, and added sugars during lunch, dinner, and snacks than people who eat breakfast.
19. Include Your Favorite Foods
While it is true that you shouldn’t be eating a dozen doughnuts or a gallon of ice cream every day if you want to live a healthier lifestyle, giving up your favorite foods may lead to eating more of them in the long run.
Allow yourself to eat foods you enjoy to help keep you satisfied and on track. It’s even okay to eat dessert every day, as long as it’s in moderation.
20. Embrace Herbs and Spices Instead of Salt
Eating too much sodium daily may increase your risk of developing hypertension. To reduce your sodium intake, a good start is to limit the amount of salt that is added to your dishes. Just 1 teaspoon of table salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium.
When you are limiting your added salt intake, add flavorful additions like herbs and spices that are sodium-free but pack a punch in the flavor department. Experiment with different combinations to enhance the flavor of your dishes without relying on salt.
Implementing these dietitian-approved healthy eating habits can make a significant impact on your overall well-being. By making small, sustainable changes to your diet, you can support your health without the need for drastic measures. Start with a few of these tips and gradually incorporate more into your routine. With time, these healthy habits will become second nature, helping you to lead a healthier, more balanced life.
