When the New Year arrives, most people create resolutions about changes they will make to their lives. One of those resolutions often involves healthy eating or losing weight.
Even if you did not create such a New Year’s resolution, you should use this time as the perfect opportunity to transform your routine. Getting more exercise and eating right can boost brain function while giving you more energy and mental clarity.
If you are fed up with always feeling tired, anxious, or lethargic, changing your diet is the first step in your journey towards wellness. Only when people spend several weeks eating healthily do they realize what a difference it can make to their energy levels.
Below are five healthy eating tips to improve your wellness in 2022 and beyond.
1. Start Small
A significant error that most people make when creating healthier habits is to attempt a 180-degree shift in their lifestyle. If you have spent the past ten years eating different cuisines, drinking excessive alcohol, and smoking, you are very unlikely to drop all these bad habits entirely for more than a few weeks.
Think about one or two of your worst habits and attempt to quit or limit those. Perhaps you can cut back to one alcoholic beverage a day, instead of multiple drinks. Such changes are more manageable, while they can have a very positive impact on your immediate and long-term wellness.
2. Eat Lots of Leafy Greens and Beans
If you are the type of person who enjoys eating a big meal twice a day, then you may be having a hard time with wellness. Perhaps a typical meal of yours includes rice, meat, and some vegetables; you may be having a lot of rice and meat, but not very many vegetables.
A great way to eat healthier is to fill up your plate with beans and leafy greens. Think about your favorite greens, whether it is spinach, kale, arugula, or lettuce. Include a lot of that item on your plate for lunch and dinner, and then add some beans as well. You can use low-fat Greek yogurt as a healthy dressing if you prefer.
Have a healthy amount of protein on the plate, whether you are getting that protein through eggs, fish, tofu, lentils, chicken, or beef.
Then you can add rice, tortillas, or your carbohydrates of choice onto the plate. Since you have so many leafy greens and beans on there, you will not have as much space for carbs.
If you eat like this most meals, you will find yourself losing weight very quickly. In addition, your energy levels will shoot up within a few days.
3. Enjoy Colorful Meals
People think that dieticians are joking when they say that your plate should be colorful if you want to eat healthily. When you are adding fruits, vegetables, beans, berries, lentils, and other foods onto the plate, ensure you have plenty of different colors.
Color matters for foods because fruits and vegetables of different colors usually have varying nutrients. For example, a plate with lettuce, cucumbers, red bell peppers, yellow squash, and broccoli has many colors. You can even add eggplant for even more color. Having a colorful meal ensures you get a broad spectrum of nutrients with each meal.
It may take you a few days to get used to having so many foods on your plate. But if you begin to understand how to prepare meals in this way, you will start shopping accordingly. Rather than buying a significant quantity of one or two vegetables, you can get smaller quantities of five or six vegetables.
4. Add Potassium To Your Diet
There was an old misconception that everyone should be eating a low sodium diet. Unless your doctor has specifically told you to avoid sodium, your focus should be on adding more potassium to your diet.
You can get more potassium through baked potatoes, bananas, dates, beans, and nonfat or low-fat yogurts. You need potassium in your diet because balancing sodium and potassium is essential to have the best possible vascular health.
People think that cutting sodium is the best approach, but then you are getting very little of either electrolyte. You are much better off eating sodium as usual but increasing your potassium intake.
5. Focus on Lean Proteins
Eating a diet heavy in fruits and vegetables does not mean you have to go vegan or vegetarian. You can still enjoy animal products in moderation, especially if they are lean sources of protein.
Eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, and very lean cuts of beef or lamb are very healthy for you. So long as you are consuming these foods in moderation, they can form part of your balanced diet.
Eat Healthier, Save Money, and Live Longer
Not only are you likely to perform better at physical tasks and work, but you are also going to have an easier time maintaining personal relationships. As you eat healthier and manage your wellness, your mood becomes more stable and relaxed.
Another perk of eating healthier is that you save money, as you are no longer ordering junk food through delivery apps or spending obscene amounts of money on alcohol.
Eat better, enjoy the increased energy and brain function you now have, and live longer with help from the above five healthy eating tips.
