four simple tips to help with sticking to a healthy diet

Willpower is something everyone has, but isn’t always easy to find. It occasionally likes to hide, especially around the holidays or when you’re finally on that long-awaited vacation or cruise. The trick to making any diet or lifestyle change work in your favor is to stick with it, and be strong enough not to stray too far from the routine. Everyone is capable of taking control of their diet. That doesn’t mean it’s always going to be easy, but you do have the power to maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight, which can help you avoid certain health problems down the road. These simple steps can help you stay on track.

• Start With Simple Steps
  Jumping right into change can be overwhelming. One way to create good food habits for yourself is to start with small changes and stick to them every day. For instance, adding a daily salad to a meal or replacing an afternoon snack with raw veggies every day will help you establish the right kind of eating patterns. This can be easily accomplished by making the effort to start preparing your own meals. Cooking at home and bringing prepared lunch and snacks to work will give you control over your caloric intake and help you be more mindful of the foods you eat.  Reading labels is another great way to become more in touch with what you put in your body. The typical Western diet is often filled with processed food, sugary snacks and pre-packaged meats. These items are notoriously full of unnecessarily high amounts of salt, sugars and preservatives that have a negative impact on your metabolism. Reading the labels will also help you see through the false claims that so many diet foods put on their labels. Many food manufacturers like to add terms like low-fat and gluten free to their labels to distract from the copious amounts of salt or sugar found in their product.
• Moderation is Key
  This can be easier said than done. Where many people fail in their diets is when they get discouraged by seeing the amount of food on their plates after portioning out a proper serving size. In order for you to lose weight and keep the weight off, you can only intake the amount of food your body needs. Smaller portion sizes are a great start, and if you feel hungry between meals, you can eat unlimited snacks of fresh vegetables. One trick to reducing portion size is to eat more slowly. People often eat quickly and miss their body’s cues that they are becoming full. Eating slowly will give your brain and body enough time to sync up and tell you when enough is enough.
• Eat More Vegetables
  You’ve been told this since you were a kid, but it’s true for people of all ages. Vegetables and fruits are full of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and all kinds of other goodness that our body craves. The fiber contained in vegetables also helps your body break down food and fats in a healthy way, and puts you well on your way to maintaining gut health. Everyone should consume five servings of fruits or vegetables a day. This typically means that most people should eat about double of what they are currently consuming. A good way to make sure you’re receiving a wide variety of nutrients in your vegetables is to eat fruits and veggies in a wide range of colors.
• Use Natural Products
  Even your daily condiments can be full of things like processed sugars and high fructose corn syrups that are difficult for your body to metabolize. Turning to products that use natural ingredients and do not rely on heavy processing is a great way to cut out the bad stuff. Hampton Creek produces an egg-less mayonnaise product that not only is a healthy alternative to the sandwich spread, but also has less of a carbon footprint than traditional mayonnaise, as it is made without animal products. Read more about Hampton Creek to learn of other healthy alternatives to comfort foods.

Hampton Creek is one of my favorite brands. They also have cookie dough that you can eat right out of the container because it is egg-less. It is quite divine.

Making the switch to a healthy lifestyle can be difficult at first, but with determination and careful planning, you can establish healthy and enjoyable habits in no time. Keep it simple, start slow and don’t get overwhelmed, and you’ll be feeling better before you know it. The key to healthy eating is to maintain appropriate portion sizes and eating fresh, minimally processed foods to boost your body’s metabolism and get you on your way to your target weight.

What do you do to help stick to a healthy diet? I’d love to hear your suggestions outside of these.