9 Ways to Improve Your Nutrition Now!

Want to start eating healthy but don’t know how? These steps may help!

1. Evaluate your current eating habits:

Do you eat a lot of processed food, if so how often, every meal, once a day, once a week?Does most of your food come from a packet? Do you eat any veggies or fruit, grains? A useful tip for this is to keep a food diary, write down everything that you eat and then evaluate it at the end of the week.

2. Identify foods you like and don’t like:

Do you like vegetables but just don’t eat them. Do you love chocolate and sweets? Do you love breakfast cereal? Do you hate grains and nuts? Go through all the foods you love and don’t love. This will help you when coming to creating your own meal plan. It will tell you which foods you can probably get rid of and which foods you absolutely have to keep in your diet. Also think of some foods you would like to try.

3. Identify your nutrition goals:

Do you want to eat more plant based? Do you want to eat less sugar and processed food, are you looking to increase your protein intake? Do you want to change your body composition?

4. Start small

Now once you have all your information you can start small. So for example instead of snacking on chocolate and chips, choose to have fruit, or veggies and dip, or popcorn. But keep your breakfast, lunch and dinner the same. Or you could try a healthy breakfast idea so instead of sugary cereal, have an omelette and keep your lunch and dinner the same. Starting small makes it less of a shock on your body and makes you more likely to stick to these new habits. Eventually, once you’re used to changing one aspect of your diet, you can change a second and then a third until you’re used to all these knew habits.

5. Research

You can also research and try new recipes. You might be used to eating a lot of packet foods or pre-made meals. Those foods have a lot of added ingredients. So instead, research your favourite foods and find some recipes you can make that are healthier. They don’t have to be crazy complicated, it could literally just be meat and veg. and there plenty of healthy slices out there if you have a sweet tooth!

6. Introduce more veggies:

They’re low in calories and can really bulk up your foods. It is also recommended to have veggies every single day as they come with heaps of benefits. So try out some new veggies and mix up your way of cooking them, add some seasonings too which can make them taste better!

7. Serving sizes/ recommendations:

Often people are eating double what a single serving actually is so make sure you read the labels. It can be a real eye opener.

8. Try new things!

And make sure you try new things! If you’re out at a restaurant, maybe try a meal on the healthier side that you would never had thought about before. You might be surprised at how good it tastes. Also, trying plant based meals can be great because some of them I can say taste amazing. So if there’s a popular healthy product going around (or it doesn’t have to be popular) but you think it could taste good, give it a go! This is the same with new recipes and food. You might find a whole new variety of food that you never even knew you liked.

9. Cook with others

Cooking with others is also a great way to increase the healthiness of your food. Friends and family might have a bunch of easy, healthy recipes that you could make together. You can even make healthy eating a social experience which can be really fun!

Ultimately, if you are looking to eat healthier, the main tips are start slow, personalise your meal plan to you and try new things.

I hope this helped anyone who is looking to be healthier. This can be a scary thing to start doing but you are not alone, a lot of people are trying to make a change. Even myself, I am still on my healthy eating journey, constantly finding and researching new foods to eat.