How to enjoy your favourite foods as part of a healthy diet
|Published
Every day, we make choices. And so many of us struggle with our choices around eating. It is a challenge to consistently eat a nourishing diet or to even keep track of what that means amidst the newest diet or health food fads that flood social media.
Whatever your health goal - weight loss, lowering cholesterol, improving energy levels - you can accomplish it without feeling deprived or hungry.
Here’s how to do it:
Drink water
Staying hydrated is the key to a healthy body. Water plays a significant role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the body and protecting our health from harmful illnesses.
It keeps us hydrated and avoids complications that can result in serious medical conditions.
Apart from that, it aids our weight loss goals tremendously. Besides making you feel full for longer periods of time, it allows you to cut back on extra calories, which is usually the source of your guilt.
Order assertively in restaurants
Restaurants can be a minefield of dining disasters if you accept your meal as it is prepared based on the menu. Build your own healthy plate when dining out by perusing the available side dishes and making substitutions.
Order a salad in addition to less-healthy components. Most restaurants are very accommodating of special requests, so make your meal special.
Take control of your meal by combining the best menu ingredients you can find.
Practise mindful eating
Mindful eating helps you take greater control of your eating habits. It helps build a healthy relationship with food and encourages you to focus on your food’s exquisite flavours, textures, and smells.
It can be an effective strategy to help people learn that eating for pleasure sometimes (or even regularly) isn’t a bad thing. You can build a deeper connection and appreciation with food by noticing how different foods make you feel.
Mindful eating will also help you recognise what foods satiate you and what foods leave you hungry.
Mindful eating also helps curb any cravings you have.
Eat slower
To combat bingeing, it is key to learn to eat slower. It takes 20 minutes for the stomach to communicate with the brain. So if you are stuffing down a treat meal like no tomorrow, you will overeat and feel stuffed and horrible.
Slow down, enjoy your food, and put it down between bites. Chew. By doing this, you give your body a chance to properly digest and let you know if you are still hungry or not before it's too late.
By slowing down and being more aware, it gives you the opportunity to stop before too much damage (excess calorie consumption) is done.
Eating slower will help you feel more satisfied and is a much different feeling than just being full.