By “eating healthy” doesn’t mean to go on chronic diet or starve yourself with just veggies and fruits. Instead, it’s the process of changing your eating habits over the period of time to stay healthy all-time.

You may have heard the quote saying: ‘Health is Wealth’, and that’s totally true.

People have misconceptions about healthy eating like they may have to eat what they don’t want to or apply strict diet.

Let me clear you the difference. Eating healthy is what to take baby steps towards eating healthy foods yet fulfilling foods to balance the energy and nutrition requirements.

Many of us make excuses like – healthy eating is not tastes good, I don’t have time to prepare it, healthy foods are too costly…and so on.

However, it’s not like we don’t know HOW TO EAT HEALTHY, it’s just we don’t want to. I think this is because most of us lack motivation for healthy lifestyle.

But this is easily achievable if we start small changes in our eating habits with time. Also, it’s not going to be change overnight.

For easy, consistent and long lasting changes on how you eat, you need to stick more with slow and incremental changes. As we all are aware about the story, Slow and Steady wins the race!

Plus, it will not be hard or stressful if you apply a nominal change in the beginning and adding another small change after few weeks of habit.

On a long-term, this healthy eating is something that will change your life in every way, I am sure about it.

So, let’s look at some ways to start eating healthy foods for healthier beginning of life:

Go for whole foods than processed foods

Whole foods are generally unprocessed foods, keeping their natural ingredients. Vegetables, fresh fruits, nuts and whole grains fall into this category.

They are power-packed with necessary nutrients such as dietary fiber, protein, healthy fats as well as vitamins and mineral as compared to processed foods.

All processed foods are what your frozen pizzas, processed breads and anything that undergone the factory processing. They all diminishes the essential and natural nutrients of food and leave with empty calorie.

By this way, whole foods not only keep your appetite full and gives your body required nutrients but also boosts your dream project – Weight Loss!

Avoid sugary drinks and junk foods

Every 1 person among 5 is drinking sugary drinks. Whether it is soda, fizzy drinks or your favorite chocolates – everything that has added sugar is not in your health’s favor.

Mostly people assume that the supermarket has the best combination of fruits and healthy diet, but that’s not true. You may don’t know about refined sugar and flavor enhancers in those so called “healthy juices”.

This type of sugar puts you at the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. They can also damage our tooth health.

Instead of this sugary drinks and junk foods, I prefer to drink plenty of water. Adding 0 calorie, water benefits your body in many ways. Eat few slices of fresh fruits rather than drinking sugary packed juices.

It is suggested to drink 8 to 10 glasses of water per day. Read more on how much water you should drink a day.

Or just prepare a home-made cocktail with water, a spring of fresh herb and few drops of lemon.

Same for junk foods like bread, processed pastas, hot dogs and your favorite cheese burgers. Literally, they all have no health benefits.

If you can’t totally avoid the junk food, then spend in some whole grain products.

Divide your meals

I really like the concept of dividing your meals to reduce the total food intake. Trick your own mind with smaller portion of your meals all day.

Let say, starting a day with healthy whole grains breakfast or eggs. After 2 hours, eat any of the fruit like apple or orange. Fill a bowl of green vegetable salads with healthy beans or legumes at lunch. In evening, why not take few nuts and a banana?

When we eat in large amount, our body also gets used to eat more, resulting weight gain.

There is also a concept of eating in smaller plates. While eating in large plates, our mind thinks that this is a smaller amount of food and I need more. So play a game with your own mind by eating in smaller plates.

This way you will feel satisfied and don’t overeat. Sometimes, bright and colorful meals with great amount of nutrients also plays a role in your healthy eating.

Bring healthy foods wherever you go

When you are dying of hunger, definitely you look for quick and easy biting around you. At that time thinking of healthy eating is not even in your mind.

Rather than eating processed and unhealthy this time, prepare your healthy foods in advance.

Keep some cooked beans or whole grains in small boxes, a basket of fresh fruits and vegetables in your kitchen. Carry them wherever you go.

This will keep you pre-planned about your healthy eating and less on processed foods.

Eat healthy fats, carbs and protein

It’s important to take healthy carbs, fats and protein beneficiary for our body. Make sure to avoid unhealthy of each source.

Oily fishes are rich in healthy omega-3 fatty acids and a good source of protein. Eat any of oily fish – salmon or herring – of your choice at least twice a week.

Other great sources of healthy fats include nuts, avocados and olive oil. Dairy products like natural yogurt and milk are good sources of calcium and protein.

Beans, legumes and eggs are other powerful sources of protein, micronutrients and fiber.

As these healthy fat sources also have high calorie content, make sure to watch out your diet.

Do not garnish everything with salt

Yah, I know nothing feels taste when salt is not there. Too much salt in your food can raise your blood pressure. The recommended daily salt intake should not be more than 6 mg per day.

If you can’t bear the taste without salt, seasoning your food with some more healthy herbs and spices, such as lemon, black pepper, coriander or cayenne will add better taste to it.

Add more green veggies and fruits

Green and healthy is necessary to include in our daily food habits. Try to eat at least 5 to 9 servings of green leafy vegetables and fresh fruits. These are the healthy foods that are overflowing with essential vitamins and minerals.

Try to mix up vegetables to make nice salads for your mid-morning hunger or have some pieces of fresh fruit for your afternoon snacks. Spinach, collard greens, avocadoes, tomatoes, carrot, cucumber – anything you can mix up with a garnishing of herbs and spices.

If green leafy vegetables and fruits are not really a part of your day, increasing the intake to 5 to 9 serving will be difficult. Take slow and steady steps to initially mix them with your daily diet.

Cook new healthy recipes

There are number of healthy recipes available on YouTube or cookbooks so you don’t feel bored with eating healthy foods.

Cooking your own food at home needs time for preparation. So you need to plan your day accordingly. Grab the weekend opportunity to chop some vegetables or fruits and prepare small containers to put them into the fridge.

You can also go for your grocery shopping in week times. If the plan is to eat healthy at night, do some advance preparation in the morning like washing or chopping vegetables or prepare some sauces.

Not only calories, count your nutrition too

The key point for eating healthy is to not only keep an eye on your calories, but also count your nutrients.

Though counting the calories is a great start to keep track on how much you eat, essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals are equally important.

Not all calories give you equal energy. It totally depends on quality of calorie you burn and consume. Quality and quantity is different matter in case of calories.

The calorie and energy of chocolates and broccoli are not same. One is healthy, one is sugary and processed.

Remember to watch on your healthy macronutrients while counting calories!

Start exercising

Yes! Exercising. I personally recommend doing any of physical activity to stay healthy lifelong. Go to the gym, do some yoga or meditation – whatever you choose to do, you’ll be relaxed and stress free.

Exercise along with healthy eating is a good combination for healthy life. Well, I am not going anywhere. Infect I am doing my own exercises at home with a fine touch of few healthy yoga poses and mediation of few minutes.

In today’s unhealthier and full of depression life, lack of time don’t allow us to live the way we want to be healthy. Spending at least half an hour in the morning for exercises or meditation helps to stay fit and fine all day.

Start exercising today!

Track your goal

No matter in which field you are, tracking your goal is very important. By that, you know where you belong in a way to achieve your goal. Same thing is applicable for the way to start eating healthy.

While eating small bites you don’t realize how much you have ate. It’s a good habit to keep a bird’s eye on your intakes by making a food journal on your computers or iPhones.

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There are many apps available in play store to download on your smartphones. One of them is MyFitnessPal, that I’ve been using for long. It is a great app to track your food consumes and calories with what vitamins or nutrients you are getting from that foods.

Once you start eating healthy, you’ll no longer remain stressful and unhealthy. Healthy diet also helps you with your long-term goal to lose weight and keeps you away from major health risks like heart problems or cholesterol.

It will not be easy at the beginning. By making small, incremental changes over time, you’ll develop new healthy habits. Immediate and all changes at once will not be helpful.

Make a note on sticky notes and put them on a fridge door or work desk, somewhere you’ll see every day.

I hope you guys stay motivated to eat healthy with these tips on how to start eating healthy. Make a comment on which way you use to keep motivation and how it helps you to start a healthy day!

Start eating healthy from today!