How do you start eating healthy and, keep doing it day in and day out?
“The hardest part about eating healthy is being consistent,” says Emma Willingham, clinical dietitian at Houston Methodist. One of the biggest challenges to achieving this consistency is that many people view a “healthy” or “nutritious” eating plan as one that’s very restrictive. Willingham stresses, “No foods are off limits. All foods fit, there are just some foods we want to choose more often and other foods we want to consume in moderation.” “Thinking about food through an all-or-nothing lens makes it harder to establish consistent habits.” She also warns that relying on a scale to measure progress is another common blocker to sticking with a healthy eating pattern. “The number we see on the scale serves as a single snapshot, not the full picture. You can use the scale as a data point, but make sure to assess the way your clothes fit, the way that you look in the mirror and the way that you feel.” Eating healthy also means choosing these whole foods over processed, packaged ones more often than not.
Healthy eating emphasizes:
- Nonstarchy vegetables, such as dark leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, onions, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, fresh herbs, carrots
- Whole fruit, fresh or frozen, as well as canned fruit packed in water or its own juice
- Whole grains, such as whole wheat bread and pasta, whole oats, brown rice and quinoa
- Lean proteins, including poultry, seafood and lean cuts of meat (tenderloin, round, chuck and sirloin)
- Calcium-rich foods, such as low-fat milk products
- Protective, unsaturated fats, like avocados, nuts, seeds, oily fish, and olive or canola oil