Overhauling your diet may seem overwhelming, but you can eat healthy foods and lose weight by making small changes that add up to better nutrition. A good diet will naturally manage your weight and satisfy nutritional needs. This lowers your risk for developing chronic ailments as you grow older and keeps you at the top of your game right now.
Cut Salt
It is easy to overdo salt, even in a good diet. Innocent foods, such as olives and pickles, are high in salt. Fast foods, such as submarine sandwiches and cheeseburgers, are exploding with it, satisfying up to two-thirds of your total daily sodium allowance.
If you eat a fast food lunch, balance it with a healthy food dinner of low-sodium veggies and grains. Do the same when you eat canned soups or packaged, frozen foods, even diet brands. Most of these otherwise healthy foods are high in sodium.
Cut Sugar
Corn syrup and other added sweeteners stand in the way of a good diet as well. Sweetened foods have a greater proportion of calories than nutrients, making them poor nutritional choices and threats to weight management.
Choose plain over sweetened fruit yogurt, and add your own fruit. Buy unsweetened peanut butter and low-sugar cereals or oatmeal. Drink water, low-fat milk or diet cola instead of high-calorie sodas. For better nutrition, substitute blueberries for syrup on your waffle.
Cut Dairy Fat
Make the move from whole milk toward fat free. Ease yourself into it by gradually switching from whole to reduced fat to non-fat. You will not miss the fat at all in creamy yogurt or cottage cheese.
Cut Meat Fat
It may seem obvious, but cutting the stripes of fat from beef, pork, lamb and chicken reduces the saturated fat and calories in your meals, allowing these meats a place in a good diet. Substitute high-fat duck and beef chuck for lower-fat ocean perch, skinless, boneless chicken or beef eye of round. In fact, for less fat and better nutrition, most fish and crustaceans make healthy food substitutes for poultry and red meat.
Cut Added Fat
The exception to better nutrition from fish than meat is when fat is added in cooking. Prefer steamed shrimp to breaded, fried varieties. Baked or grilled fish are healthier than those sauteed in butter. Choose a baked potato and salsa over one that's buttered, or in place of french fries. When cooking eggs, poached saves you fat calories over fried or scrambled.
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