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Eating healthy is good for you, no matter who you are or what your goals. You don't have to be trying to lose weight to eat healthier, for one thing. But it can be tricky to know where to start, so here are your basic guidelines for healthy eating. Fruits, veggies, and protein are some of the easiest places to start, and they'll have the biggest impacts.Theres no perfect dietBefore we start, an important ground rule: There isnt one true perfect way to eat. No matter what your keto friend says, or your mom who has this diet plan you just have to try, or even those ranked lists of the "best" diets. When weight-loss diets have been tested against each other, they all work about the same. And if youre just eating healthy for, you know, your health (what an idea!) there are still plenty of ways to do it. So lets talk about the things that nearly all healthy eating approaches have in common. Even though I'll list several good starting points below, you don't have to do all of thempick one for now. Just as with exercise, it takes time to get used to a habit. Eating healthier may involve many different habits, like learning new recipes or buying different groceries than what youre used to, so give yourself some time to learn and get used to it. Eat more fruits and vegetablesIf you only change one thing, make it this. Most of us dont eat enough vegetables, or we eat the same few over and over. Eat more vegetables, and more types of vegetables. Same with fruits, especially fresh fruits. (Apple pie is technically a fruit, but thats not quite what I mean.) Fruits and vegetables contain fiber, which most of us don't get enough of, including soluble, insoluble, and prebiotic types. They also contain vitamins and minerals that most of us could use more of, like vitamin A and potassium. And they contain plenty of phytonutrients, which are natural chemical compounds that don't qualify as vitamins but that are still likely good for us. For example, beta-carotene is a form of vitamin A, but there are at least 40 other carotenes that we can get in our diets. Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, and you'll cover a lot of bases.How to do it: Try to add a fruit or vegetable to at least one meal a day. (When you've got the hang of that, build on that and add another.) Feel free to make this convenient: frozen veggies are just as nutritious as fresh (sometimes more so). You can throw frozen cooked spinach into just about any sauce or soup, or roast a bunch of veggiesfresh, frozen, whateveron a sheet pan for an easy side dish or meal. Everything tastes good seasoned and roasted. Get enough proteinIts not hard to get enough protein on a normal diet, but as youre overhauling what you eat, make sure that youre making room for it. Lean proteins like fish, chicken and tofu are an excellent base for your diet. Whether to include fattier ones like red meat depends on your goals for your diet (including whether your doctor has advised you to limit these foods for health reasons). If youre trying to lose weight, you need more protein than the average person. The less food you eat, the more of it needs to be protein. Remember, protein is a nutrient found in many foods; its not just the meats and tofu themselves. Get used to reading labels (or googling the protein content of your foods) to make sure you get plenty. The numbers are in our protein guide. If you work out a lot, youll also need more protein than the average person. And don't worry about the fearmongering messages you may have heard about how we already get "too much" protein. This is a myth, borne out of some misunderstandings about how the RDA for protein is calculated. When you check the numbers, it turns out that the average person eats just barely enough protein, and many of us are in groups that should get more than the minimum. If you're an older adult, for example, you probably need significantly more than you're already getting.Have less sugar and processed foodIts not realistic to cut sugar and processed foods completely out of your diet. Processing is relative, anyway; cooking is a form of processing. But if you find yourself eating a lot of these foods, it can be helpful to ask yourself: What could I be eating instead?In place of a boxed breakfast cereal, for example, you could make your own oatmeal or overnight oats. If you drink a lot of soda, maybe youd be fine with swapping out some of those drinks for water or seltzer. And if you snack a lot on candy or chips, maybe you could make your meals a bit larger (more protein? More veggies?) so youre less likely to get a snacky craving later in the day.Make it easy to eat healthyIntending to eat healthy is the easy part. Its actually grabbing the right meal or snack when youre busy or exhausted that trips people up. So think ahead about what you want to eat, and set things up to make it easy. Put fresh fruit in a convenient spot, and shove the candy into the back of a cabinet. Chop some veggies on the weekend and cook some brown rice so theyre ready to throw together when its time for a meal. If you like cooking dinner but tend to be lost at lunchtime, go ahead and pack yourself a lunch in the evening (even if you work at home) so that youll just have to open your lunchbox when its time to eat. Eating healthy doesnt have to mean cooking from scratch, by the way. I love getting bags of frozen veggies or veggie/grain mixes from Trader Joes and pairing them with whatever protein I have on hand (often also bought and defrosted from Trader Joes, sorry, Im predictable). Its not cheating to make things easy on yourself. If you think that preparing your meals ahead of time might help, check out my guide to getting into the meal prep habit without getting overwhelmed with the cooking or bored with the meals. Only track calories if you really want or need toIf youre trying to gain or lose weight, what needs to happen is that your total calorie intake will need to change relative to the number of calories you burn. And if your weight has been changing but you dont want it to, youll need your calorie intake and calorie burn to be equal. Tracking your food and counting calories can help you keep tabs on whether the numbers are going the way you want them to. That said, dont track calories just because you feel like you should. If you dont have a specific goal, or if youre flexible about the timeline, you dont have to download MyFitnessPal just because thats what all your dieting friends are doing. (Cronometer is the better app for meal tracking anyway, and you can get a better handle on your weight gain or loss with Macrofactor (paid) or a free DIY solution.)If you do end up counting calories, a word of warning: dont aim for a shockingly low number, even if you have the willpower to make it work. (1200 calories is starvation rations.) Extreme calorie deficits can make you lose muscle, not just fat, which may leave you, ironically, less fit than when you started. Gradual changes are more sustainable anyway.
