A healthy diet typically includes nutrient-dense foods from all of the major food groups, including lean proteins, whole grains, healthy fats, and fruits and vegetables of many colors. Healthy eating habits also include replacing foods that contain trans fats, added salt, and sugar with more nutritious options. Following a healthy diet has many benefits, including building strong bones, protecting the heart, preventing disease, and boosting the mood. Here are some tips to convince you to eat right.
1. Balance Your Life With What You Eat
To live a fulfilling and balanced life, follow the 80/20 rule of eating. This is how I do it: throughout the week, I eat extremely clean; on the weekends, I am flexible and eat what I want. This breaks the mundane approach to food and keeps things interesting. This is also the best way to keep the body’s metabolism confused.
2. Eat Healthy To Show Yourself Respect
While eating clean is always associated with weight loss, it goes way beyond that. Eating healthy is the biggest form of self-respect. If you can control what you eat, you can control everything in life. The power that it gives you is way beyond tangible measure, making you thrive, feel confident, and genuinely very happy.
3. Enjoy What You Eat
Most women are pressured into eating right, constantly counting calories and have created a very unhealthy relationship with food, living a very unsatisfying life on a daily basis. I encourage you to change this. Create a beautiful, nourishing relationship with food, which means you only eat intuitively, you eat food that nourishes you mentally and physically. You must enjoy every bite of what you eat without any guilt and always know when to stop.
4. Stick To Tradition
I truly believe that it is the old, traditional rules of eating that can actually save our soul and body in these toxic times. Nutrition science, as we know today, is simply trying to catch up with many age-old nuggets of wisdom and observation-led beliefs that have been followed forever. It will do us good to keep following the healthy way of living that our elders have taken pains to outline for us. Yes, even without science backing it up at times! So, when it comes to living your day-to-day life, stick to the logical commonsensical ways of your grandparents.
5. Follow A Non-Diet Approach
I feel the only sustainable way to gain health is to live a life and lifestyle where your good habits outnumber your bad ones, so focus on habit changes. Quit following fads. Somehow, we tend to throw our common sense into the bin when it comes to our diet, and that is a dangerous way to live. Understand the true meaning of the word ‘diet’: it does not mean giving up food; it just means replacing bad with good. And we need to stop focusing on calories alone and begin focusing on nutrients instead. The moment we do that and begin plating good-for-us food, the calories will take care of themselves, and you will lose weight automatically.
6. Get Your Vitamins From Nutrient-Rich Food
In many instances, the vitamins and minerals found in food sources are easier to absorb than those in supplement form. With the added benefit of the other nutrients found in food, eating healthy gives far greater benefits than opting for supplements and eating poorly. A proper diet offers more vitamins, giving your body everything it needs to function properly. Nutrients obtained from food, not supplements, correlate with lower risks of mortality and cancer.
7. Eat Keeping The Planet In Mind While You Eat Right
Perhaps you cannot figure out (or do something about) feeding a growing population and saving the planet alone, but you can (and must) tweak your diet in a way that will support the world around you. Do it to save those you love. Eat healthy, eat more plants, less meat, and support and propagate organic, local and fresh.
Get The Health You Deserve
1. Avoid The Wellness Deficit
Things such as a delightful bath with bubbles, essential oils and Epsom salts, a wonderful face mask, and expensive skincare fit into the category of self-care, but self-care is so much more than these delectable treats that we give ourselves rarely and, often, guiltily. It’s about taking care of our physical, mental and spiritual health. It is not a treat, but a necessity. A ‘wellness deficit’ can manifest in the form of a meltdown, tension, anxiety, and lashing out, which, if not addressed in the long run, can lead to long-term depression and disease. Because of constant hormonal changes and the need to multitask, women are always exposed to challenges, and that is why it is so important that you take self-care seriously. Other ways you can improve your wellness deficit: spending time in nature, laughing, doing something that you love, standing up for yourself when someone is bringing you down, taking a nap…
2. Unleash Your Inner Power With Breathwork
Breathwork and pranayama are not the same. Conscious Connected Breathing is usually a one-hour intense session of constant breathing. It is guided by a therapist and framed by music. You can reach deep inner blockages and release them by committing to the breath. You might get insights into your life you did not have access to before, and the energetic effect lasts much longer than just the duration of the session. Breathwork can unleash your inner power like you would not expect. It’s intense and gentle at the same time, and definitely liberating.
3. Get 30 Minutes Of Intentional Exercise Every Single Day
A regular 30-minute regimen of physical exercise can go a long way in controlling all metabolic markers. Delivering oxygen and nutrients to your muscle tissues while helping your cardiovascular system to work more efficiently, exercise will give your body the shake-up it needs to continue working effectively. Working out regularly can easily avert the lifelong pills that are to be taken if we develop abnormal hormonal levels. Working out does not just help with losing a few kilos, it also leads to a boost of oxygen levels in the brain, improving memory and concentration, and reducing the risk of depression. It acts as a cognitive enhancer, promoting creativity in inexpensive and healthy ways.
4. Adopt The 5-Minute Meditation
While you can receive the biggest gains from meditation with frequent practice, just five minutes of meditation actually can bring a quick reduction of your stress levels. The more you practise meditation, the more the brain muscle grows, and, over time, you will find yourself enjoying the practice more and even increasing the amount of time you spend meditating. Your mental stamina will strengthen, and you will find yourself with a greater ability to focus throughout the day. Those who like to move might prefer a walking meditation.
5. Build Your Female Connections
There is nothing more restorative than connecting with your female friends, sisters or loved ones. They will give you advice, offer you a shoulder to cry on, keep your secrets, lend a listening ear and boost your self-esteem. Developing strong and healthy female friendships is something all women can benefit from. Women have a larger behavioural repertoire than just fight or flight. The hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress response in a woman; it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend to her children and gather with other women instead. Studies suggest that, when she actually engages in this tending or befriending, more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men.
Sources:
https://www.femina.in/food/immunity-boosters/for-a-great-life-221152-8.html
https://www.femina.in/wellness/health/get-the-health-you-deserve-221150-1.html
https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/essential-guide-to-healthy-eating/
