Eat healthier in 2021 (without sacrificing your love for food!)
Losing weight and eating healthier are always in the list of the most popular New Year’s resolutions.
You may have noticed, though, that despite our best intentions, many of us fail to achieve these goals.
And after each failure, the target becomes harder to reach…
But, have you ever wondered why so many of us find it hard to change their eating habits?
From my experience, one of the main reasons is that many people set unrealistic objectives and expect almost immediate results.
They therefore choose to follow very restrictive diet plans promising weight loss in a few weeks, and sometimes even in a few days!
But unfortunately it’s not possible to lose in a few weeks all the excess weight accumulated during several years…
Also, these are diets that are easy to follow for one or two weeks, but become more difficult to stick to with each passing day.
As they are too restrictive, soon you start feeling deprived and end up going back to your old habits.
What is the best way to maintain a healthy diet?
Let’s start by saying that a diet is healthy when your habits are healthy most of the time.
There are no shortcuts: if you want to eat healthy, you’ll need to change your habits for good and stick to them as much as you can.
Hard core dieting for a couple of weeks won’t make any difference.
But the good news is that:
- Occasional cheat days are allowed, as nobody is perfect all the time ;)
- A healthy diet is not a punishment and can actually be delicious
The first step is to know which foods you should eat more of.
What should you eat?
The foods that you should eat more often are the ones that are high in nutrients such as minerals, vitamins, dietary fibre and antioxidants, and low in fat, especially saturated fat.
Most plant-based foods have these characteristics, especially if they are not - or are minimally - processed.
The key to a healthy and fulfilling diet is therefore to eat on a daily basis:
- legumes (such as lentils, beans or peas)
- whole grains or potatoes (such as barley, brown rice or whole meal pasta)
- fruits and vegetables
- nuts and seeds
No need to follow restrictive (and depressing!) diet plans then, sticking to a plant-based diet is the best way to eat healthy without sacrificing delicious food.
Should you reduce your portions?
You’ll be happy to hear that in most cases it’s not even necessary to eat less!
This is because most plant-based foods are naturally lower in calories and richer in dietary fibre compared with animal foods.
By replacing animal protein such as cheese or meat with plant protein such as legumes and tofu, without even noticing you’ll automatically reduce your intake of:
- calories
- fat
- saturated fat
You’ll also completely get rid of cholesterol … a big advantage of plant-based diets!
You’ll therefore manage to lose weight and be healthier without reducing the amount of food that you eat.
As long as you stick to the right foods, there is no need to starve yourself!
Where should you start?
Another good thing is that nowadays transitioning to a plant-based diet is much easier than a few years ago.
In fact, there are many online tools that you can use as a step by step guide to a successful transition.
You’ll also find some amazing courses and recipes that will inspire you to experiment in the kitchen and learn how to cook some delicious plant-based meals.
Some great online tools are:
Try it for yourself, after all a delicious meal is more convincing than 1000 words!
