Starting a healthy diet requires some strategies, willpower and understanding of what components make up a healthy lifestyle. The plethora of books and television shows dedicated to dieting and healthy living can make it difficult to distill the first steps into an easy to understand beginning point. Following these six ideas can help you start your new diet off right.
Get Informed
Gathering information before you begin your healthy diet can help you avoid common mistakes such as focusing on one type of food while excluding others, eating too few calories or believing advertisements that indicate quick weight loss is possible and easy. Understand that a healthy diet follows the U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPyramid recommendations of eating both fruits and vegetables; about half your food intake from carbohydrates; 3 cups of dairy or milk per day; healthy fats; and low-calorie, low-fat proteins.
Eat by Color
Selecting your food by color can help you eat more low-calorie fruits and vegetables, which can help you keep your caloric intake at an appropriate level. Although processed foods are often beige, vibrant melons, apples, oranges, grapes and mangoes are full of color and essential nutrients. Salad greens such as spinach and kale, although low in calories, are also good sources of vitamins A and K as well as iron. Add your favorite raw, chopped vegetables to 1 to 2 cups of leafy greens for a daily salad.
Choose Dense Foods
Filling up on dense, healthy foods keeps you satisfied. Dense, low-calorie foods include hearty whole-wheat bread, cooked beans, tofu, Greek yogurt, small servings of almonds, whole-grain crackers and roasted or baked poultry without the skin. The American Dietetic Association indicates that energy-dense foods make it easier to eat fewer calories because you can eat a larger quantity and volume of the food compared with high-calorie, nonfilling foods such as chocolate candy or potato chips.
Monitor the Easy Way
Part of staying on a healthy diet is monitoring your food intake to ensure you are within your calorie targets and nutritional goals. Begin a healthy diet journal or take advantage of a free diet tracking program such as the one found at MyPyramid.gov. If you find you are not eating adequate amounts of a particular food group when reviewing your journal, you can quickly make changes. Weighing yourself daily or weekly helps you monitor your success at either losing or maintaining your weight, according to the statistics from the successful weight maintainers at the National Weight Control Registry.
Plan Ahead
Whether you are eating at home, the office or dining at a restaurant, planning will help you stay on your healthy diet. Before you go to the grocery store, write down your meals and purchase the food you need for a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner. When dining out, decide in advance what you will order by reviewing the nutritional information of the restaurant beforehand or ordering a simple salad, baked sweet potato and a small piece of grilled meat or seafood.
Check with Your Doctor
When you are plan to change your diet to lose weight or just eat more nutritiously, check with your doctor before beginning your program. She can check your glucose levels, give you recommendations on caloric intake and advise you on appropriate exercise for your age and health status.
References
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: Food Groups
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Fruit & Vegetable Benefits
- USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory: Spinach and Kale
- American Dietetic Association: Eat More Food, But Fewer Calories
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: MyPyramid Tracker
- National Weight Control Registry: NWCR Facts
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