As a girl who used to live off pizza, macaroni cheese and doritos, I know how hard making the move to healthier eating can be. Two years ago I was overweight, miserable and had extremely low self-esteem and body issues. Moving to healthier eating hasn't only changed how I physically look, but how I feel about myself, my energy and outlook on life. Rather than starve yourself or go on skinny tea detoxes (or ahem, laxatives), healthy eating can start with easy baby steps. Here are my top ones:
Embrace plantbased wholefoods
The plantbased community has taken over in the past couple of years, not only because this lifestyle works but because there is now an overwhelming amount of scientific studies proving that a plantbased diet is optimal for health. When you hear plantbased, this means filling your diet with fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes, and no animal products. Clean eating is an extremely debatable topic and usually consists of high fat, high protein and low carb. This often leads to people depriving themselves of carbs which are essential for our energy whilst loading up on animal products that are high in cholestoral and fat. Every body is different but I have personally found this lifestyle works for me as I've never felt like I'm on a diet. On a plantbased lifestyle you can eat as much as you like, have the energy to do your work outs and get over restrictive tendencies. So yes, you can eat rice, potatoes, and pasta and lose weight. If you don't believe me, check out @essenaoneill @bonnyrebecca and @tessbegg on Instagram for some inspiration.
Plan ahead and make time to cook
Healthy eating really doesn't need to be hard or time consuming, but you will definitely succumb to junk food if you're not prepared in advance. The main tip is to never allow yourself to get to the point of being starving so that you're forced to eat something processed and unhealthy. Easy ways to get around this are to batch cook - so if you're making quinoa, make a huge batch so you have some left over for salads throughout the week. It's important to always have healthy snacks, so I always have some medjool dates with me wherever I go. Yum. I always have homemade hummus or guacamole in the fridge to dip veggies in, too.
Cut fizzy drinks for green tea
The first change I ever made in my diet was cutting out Coke. Refined sugar is the devil, and drinking a can of soda is extremely unhealthy and also harmful to our bodies. If you're someone who loads up your tea with sugar and milk, you might want to consider switching to green tea which has a huge amount of health benefits.
Find healthy versions of your favourite foods
Eating healthily does not have to mean depriving yourself of what you love. The most important thing is to find healthy versions of your favourite recipes. So if you're someone who loves chinese take-away, learn how to make a stir fry with soy sauce and sauteed veggies. Or if you're worried about giving up indulgent chocolate desserts, try things like Deliciously Ella's Sweet Potato Brownies or Avocado Chocolate Mousse. One of my favourite things in life now is Banana Nicecream which is frozen bananas blended with a tiny bit of water. Try it, it will change your life.
Be patient
It does take time, but once you make a lifestyle change, filling your body up with junk loses its appeal. Because the Western diet is so processed, our palettes are conditioned to only really taste, oil, salt and sugar. Once I dropped these from my diet and transitioned to a wholefoods lifestyle, I began to taste when something is deep fried or covered in salt, and realise how sick it makes me feel. If you're not someone who "loves" healthy food, have patience because over time your taste buds will change and once it happens you'll appreciate the nuances of taste in real food over processed.
Finally, focus on your health first
If I could go back in time to when I first started to lose weight, focusing on my health above my apperance is the piece of advice I would give. For such a long time I would starve myself on extremely low calorie diets, to go back to bingeing on extremely unhealthy food, and of course putting all the weight back on. Even when I transitioned to a plantbased lifestyle, the rhetoric that "carbs will make you fat" was so deeply ingrained that even though I thought I was being healthy, I was still starving myself. It's only been in the past couple of months that I've started going to the gym and losing my obsession with the scales to focusing on how I feel physically and mentally. Of course, you can go on a 10 day juice detox, pay a huge amount of money to starve yourself and be miserable, and see instant results. But is losing 7lbs in 2 weeks really worth it when you'll put it all back on again and be even more unhappy than when you started? Focus on your health first and make the changes in your lifestyle to lose weight long term.
So there's my advice! Do you have any tips for healthier eating?
Lydia Rose,
xoxo
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