“From tomorrow, I will finally eat healthier!” Good idea, but unfortunately, there is often a lack of implementation. Here are six little tricks with big effects that will make it easier for you to change your diet
Changing one’s diet and (finally) eating healthily is on the to-do list for many. The trouble with these lists: You never really work through them. In the worst case, you will be so frustrated about it that you consoled yourself with fast food or sweets. You can still tackle the healthy diet tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.
Counter-Proposal: You Start Now!
You’re doing yourself and your body a real favor if you eat less canned ravioli or frozen pizza from now on. The only question is: how do you properly approach such a change in diet? And what exactly do you have to change your eating habits so that it goes through as “healthy”?
Diet Change: Eat Healthier Step By Step
We’ll tell you how you can achieve big effects with even small changes in your eating behavior – and how you can persevere with the change in diet in the long term. Because regardless of whether you “just” want to eat healthily, lose weight or build muscle: the right diet is the key to each of your fitness goals. You don’t even have to implement all points immediately; otherwise, there is a high risk that you will quickly throw the gun in the grain (or the next pizza in the oven). One after the other. Changes take time.
6 Tips For Changing Your Diet Permanently
Drink More Water
Everyone can implement this tip immediately: drink enough, i.e., 2 to 3 liters a day! No, not juice or cola. Just plain water or unsweetened tea. Your body doesn’t need anything else. Water also provides an unbeatable 0 calories. And did you know that water even helps you build muscle? Even a water loss of only half a percent (based on your weight) triggers thirst. Thirst is a warning signal from the body to alert you to a deficit. It’s best not to let it get that far in the first place. This is the only way to ensure that, for example, your muscles are adequately supplied with oxygen and amino acids during training and can regenerate optimally afterward.
ALSO READ: WITH THESE 7 TIPS, YOU WILL MANAGE TO DRINK 3 LITRES OF WATER A DAY
Eat “Real” Foods
Bye-bye fix bags and cardboard schnitzel from the toaster: Ready-made products with long lists of ingredients that are more reminiscent of a chemical construction kit than food should not end up in your shopping basket but directly in the garbage. Your body can do without it because it does not benefit from artificial flavors or preservatives. Instead, rely on the most natural and preferably unprocessed foods, such as plenty of vegetables, fruit, nuts, and fish and meat.
Become A Meal Prepper
If you buy fresh food, you also have to process it. That’s why it’s now: cook yourself. And preferably not just for one meal, but for 2, 3, or 10. Keyword: Meal Prep – or better known as pre-cooking. Cook a large pot of curry or pasta, rice or quinoa with meat and vegetables, and take it to work the next day. Proper meal preppers spend hours shopping, cooking, and preparing and freezing all meals for the week.
Sounds stressful at first, but remember: You always have a healthy meal with you at lunchtime and you can avoid the obligatory currywurst in the canteen. And when you come home hungry in the evening, a finished meal is waiting for you in the fridge that you have to warm up. You can find more benefits and a sample week of meal prep here.
Breakfast – But Rich In Protein, Please!
A quick toast with Nutella or jam is always possible, even when time is short. But a sweet breakfast provides your body with lots of empty calories. Means: Your blood sugar level rises rapidly due to wheat toast and sugary spreads. An hour later, however, not only that but also your mood is in the basement. In addition, those who are not focused on eating or devouring their food while walking often do not get what and how much they eat.
The solution: plan more time for breakfast and rely on the protein-rich variant. Eating a protein-rich breakfast is healthy, helps you lose weight (since protein saturates you for a long time), and promotes muscle building. It is also important to replenish your empty energy stores in the morning to optimally start the day and avoid cravings until lunch. Eggs in any form are allowed in the morning and milk, quark, or yogurt with muesli.
Eat Less Sugar
This point may not be implementable from now on. But the fact is: Sugar not only makes you addicted in the long term, but it also makes you fat and sick. For our body, sugary foods are just empty calories with no added value. As a sugar junkie, you step into the blood sugar roller coaster every day. Chocolate bars in, blood sugar and insulin levels up = quick energy. You can no longer feel the energy kick an hour later, and the next sugar boom is due. Otherwise, the mood will drop, and cravings will arise. Get off the hamster wheel and reduce your sugar consumption! Slow. Week after week.
Eat More Vegetables Instead Of Grains
After giving up sugar, there is now your personal “boss”: Most people find it very difficult to eat less grain. The reason: noodles, rice, or bread are eaten with almost every meal if they are not the main ingredient. However, especially when losing weight, it makes sense to reduce grains in the nutrition plan. No, not because of gluten. We don’t want to demonize that here. But grain – whether whole grain or not – consists largely of carbohydrates, in other words: sugar components. Carbohydrates are the number 1 energy source in the body and are therefore important. It only becomes problematic if you constantly eat too much of it.
Excess carbs that you do not use directly for energy production are converted into fat and stored for “bad times.” They also cause our blood sugar levels to rise (and fall) rapidly. In contrast to vegetables, cereals also contain around ten times more calories.
So, as the last step in your diet, try to replace grains with vegetables more often. Of course, you don’t have to delete your beloved pasta radically. But maybe you replace them with vegetable noodles at one or the other meal?
Conclusion: This Is How The Long-Term Change In Diet Works
Little by little, everyone can incorporate our little tips with a big impact into their everyday lives. But the change in diet will only have long-term success if you don’t forbid yourself from the beginning. Okay, almost nothing. You have to pull yourself together a little to eat healthier; just don’t be too strict with yourself. The sentence “I will not eat pizza as often from now on” sounds much more pleasant (and more realistic) than “I will never eat pizza again from now on,” doesn’t it? The ban would put you under so much pressure that sooner or later, you would fail. That’s human. Therefore, implement our diet change tips and have a regular cheat day.
ALSO READ: WATER RETENTION: REBALANCE YOUR DIET WITH MICRONUTRITION
