Healthy Eating Tips

In addition to our post on Healthy Breakfast Ideas we thought we would throw in some little tips to help you along the way.  Obviously we are not experts, but these are some little things that help us stay on track when trying to lose weight or maintain.

Start the day as you mean to go on

Start your day with a healthy breakfast, it will help give you the motivation to keep it up throughout the day.  I am really loving omelettes just now, they are so filling and you can fill them with lots of yummy goodies.  We did a full post on breakfast ideas, you can have a look here.

Don't quit because you had one unhealthy meal. 

We're all guilty of it, when someone in the office starts offering to go out and buy rolls and sausage we give in and then the rest of the day we think oh well i've already been bad today might aswell continue! So you had a little stumble, it won't undo all your hard work because you had one unhealthy choice try and just move on from it and get back on track for the rest of the day. 

Incorporate fruit and veg into every meal

Sometimes the prospect of 5 a day can sound daunting when you don't really eat much fruit and veg, but by having some fruit in your porridge in the morning, some side salad with your lunch and a side of veg with your dinner makes getting your 5 a day easier than trying to snack on 5 pieces of fruit and veg throughout the day. I  (Paula) have been trying to incorporate it more into every meal and I am loving creating lots of new combinations.  Soup is always a good one to pack in the veg, I love soup mmmmm.  

Limit your carbs

My body doesn't burn insulin the same way as everyone else so for me I need to watch my sugar and carb intake (Paula, I only recently found this out).  I have been going for lower carb options which means i'm replacing it with veg instead, win win all round.  Recently i've replaced the pasta sheets in lasagne with courgette (recipe coming soon), having cauliflower rice instead of normal rice and using slim noodles instead of regular egg options.

Water

(Tracey) I don't know if its a blessing or not but I don't like fizzy drinks, I occasionally have a fanta when I'm hungover with a mcdonalds or a vodka and lemonade and lime when I'm out but that is as far as I go so I do only really drink water.  (Paula) I recently started making flavoured water which is so simple, tasty and helps slim you down!  When I make mine I put cold water into a jug and put in cucumber, orange slices, lemon slices, mint leaves and frozen raspberries.  This is best to make and leave overnight then you can strain if you like but I just top it up every 2nd time I drink some and then I do this about 3/4 times then start a new batch.

Green Tea

Green tea has so many health benefits and if I'm honest the first time I tried it I thought it tasted absolutely disgusting, but a few weeks later I decided to have another try and I'm so glad I did, I love green tea and the more I drink it the more I love it. Trying some flavoured ones will help ease you in, I recommend Peppermint flavour (my favourite) or Berry!

My Fitness Pal

I try not to go for calorie counting anymore, I think I have a much better sense at whats good and whats bad now that I don't have to. I prefer to go for healthy choices or calorie content for instance a packet of 90 calorie crisps over a 105 calorie banana, the banana may have more calories but its more beneficial but if I was calorie counting I'd be tempted just to go for the crisps haha! However I do occasionally use My Fitness Pal if I do want to check the calories for something and for some people counting calories really benefits them so I would recommend My Fitness Pal, its free and really helpful. It also has lots of forums that you can speak to other members and find out recipes etc.

Check the sugar content

Its a common misconception that fat makes you fat, of course too much of it does but sugar is really the culprit! If you check the labels you'd be shocked at how much sugar is hidden in foods, even weight watchers yogurts have 7.8g of sugar!! Even flavoured porridge can have as much as 12g of sugar! So be wary when doing your healthy shop as some things you think are healthy actually aren't. (Glasgow Food Geek agrees also!)

Incorporate Healthy Fats

Healthy fat burns fat so try incorporating avocados and nuts into your every day diet. Nut butters are also a good way of doing this. I like adding almond butter to my porridge or dipping apple slices into it.  

Not Right Now

The best tip that helped me when I was doing my Rapid Fitness Detox when I had cravings I would tell myself not right now. Not "you can have it in 2 weeks when you've finished" or "you aren't allowed that anymore" I simply just told myself "not right now". 99% of the time cravings aren't cravings at all, you just want something. So by telling myself not right now it would put the thought at bay and 9 times out of 10 I ended up not ever having it. 

I asked on twitter what your healthy eating tips are because I love a good tip!  So here is what you said;

@ElenaManighetti - use only fresh unprocessed (if possible organic) foods 80/90% of the time. It makes a difference in how you look and FEEL

use herbs and spices to add flavour, use cooking spray rather than oil, bake/boil when possible,reduce carbs and increase proteins

@glasgowscran - put fresh chilli in scrambled eggs on brown toast for breakfast - tasty, healthy and the chilli helps with weight loss

I hope you find this helpful and good luck with your healthy eating!