Healthy eating often brings to mind snacking on greens like a rabbit or eating tasteless, cardboard-like energy bars. The results of the effort may make it worth the struggle, but this approach can be a challenge to maintain.
Luckily, there are ways to improve your diet more enjoyably, from adding convenient supplements to trying new flavorful foods. In this article, you’ll find several strategies for making your health journey easier and more delicious.
1. Add a Flavorful Boost
Before completely overhauling your diet, consider adding more nutrients to what you already consume. Smoothies or basic glasses of water can be healthier and tastier by incorporating a super greens powder. You’ll enjoy what you’re drinking even more and get a jump on the vitamins and nutrients you need for the day.
Finding ways to boost the nutrition of what you eat every day is a good starting point for improving your diet. So add some shredded carrot to your sloppy Joes or stir some blueberries into your yogurt. You aren’t making major transformations or eliminating things you like. Instead, you’re making sustainable positive changes.
2. Eat With the Seasons
Another easy change you can make concerns your produce drawer. First, if you don’t keep a stock of fresh fruits and vegetables on hand, start now. Second, evaluate what types of produce you generally buy. If it’s the same old things regardless of the time of year, switching to what’s seasonally available will improve your diet. It will likely benefit your pocketbook, too.
Fresh, in-season produce will always taste better than something shipped to the store from continents away. It’s also more likely to be nutrient-dense, as it had longer to mature before being harvested. Visit your local farmer’s market to learn what produce is available throughout the year. Once you know what you’ll have access to, you can make recipe swaps for seasonal items.
3. Open Your Home Kitchen
Once your kitchen is stocked, it’s time to put it to good use. Cooking at home rather than eating at a restaurant is another way to improve your diet. You may think that means you must give up the meals you love, but that isn’t the case.
Instead of removing things you like, recreate some of your favorite restaurant dishes at home. You could swap out the fast food burger for a veggie burger. Or make a few baked fries instead of eating a large container full. When you prepare versions of your favorite fast food at home, you control the portions, ingredients, and seasoning.
4. Explore Your Spice Rack
You may have a spice rack full of spices you never use. Maybe someone gave them to you as a gift. Perhaps you needed them for that one recipe and never touched them again. Whatever the reason, there are likely seasonings in your kitchen that you’ve completely forgotten about.
Now is their time to shine. Rather than immediately reaching for the salt when cooking, try some new flavors. Not only will you expand your palate by exploring new spices, but you’ll also reduce your sodium intake. On average, Americans consume 3,400 milligrams of sodium daily, well over the recommended amount. Reducing the amount of salt you consume will improve your health, and you may find new flavor combinations you love.
5. Swap Out Old Favorites
In addition to changing the spices you use, switching up the foods you eat can also improve your health. Look at what you consume regularly and see whether there are healthier alternatives you could substitute. For example, by making your sandwiches with whole grain bread instead of white, you can lower your triglyceride levels. You’re still eating bread; it’s simply a little better for you.
Another easy switch you can make is to the vegetables you eat. If you’re usually a corn, potatoes, and beans person, try swapping them for less starchy options. Veggies like carrots, peppers, and zucchini are good alternatives you can incorporate from time to time. Remember, although all vegetables are good, it can pay to get more variety in your diet.
6. Enjoy Mid-Afternoon Snacktime
When trying to improve your diet, your instinct might be to stick to a rigid three-meal-a-day schedule. You tell yourself you won’t be filling up on junk food and can focus on eating well at those meals. This can certainly be your goal, but it may not be realistic for your lifestyle.
If you get hungry in the middle of the afternoon or start to feel a slump, you should probably eat something. Instead of reaching for a bag of chips, add more nutrients to your diet by grabbing some fruit or nuts. Depending on age and gender, adults should eat 1-2 cups of fruit per day, according to the USDA. A snack of fresh, dried, or frozen fruit can help you reach that target. By combining fruit with other nutrient-rich items, you can easily enjoy a tasty, healthy snack.
Healthier Eating Without Sacrifice
It can feel like changing up your diet will require a lot of discipline. You may be planning to give up foods you love in order to eat new, healthy things. You could be preparing for complicated lists of “approved” foods. It doesn’t have to be like that.
There are plenty of ways to improve your diet without feeling like you’re being punished. You can enjoy flavorful food that fuels your body, and it’s easy enough to do. Maintaining a lifestyle change is impossible if you don’t enjoy the process. Try out some of these tips, and you’ll soon be savoring an improved diet.