How to change your eating habits with minimum effort? 🍏 Adopt these 20 tips and make small, easy steps to improve your health today 👉
Eating healthy can be challenging these days. People tend to lead a busy lifestyle, with little or no time to prepare food for themselves. As such, the world has seen a surge in the consumption of fast foods, which are highly processed and loaded with fats and sugars, making them very calorie-dense and nutrient-poor. Try out
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), worldwide obesity rates have tripled since 1975. [1] In addition, diabetes rates have reached just under a billion people worldwide, and rates are likely to increase at current trends to 700 million people by the year 2045. Luckily, both diseases are preventable with proper diet and lifestyle habits. [2]
A healthy diet does indeed require some effort. However, changing your eating habits is a good way to take charge of your diet and improve your health in the long run.
Wondering how to change your eating habits? Check out these 20 easy tips that are very doable, effective, and will provide instant benefits for your health.
Changing Eating Habits: Simple Steps to Start With
#1 Change Your Snacks
Snacks can be controversial as there are so many variables that determine whether a snack is healthy or not.
Snacks provide an energy boost between meals, which prevents your blood glucose level from falling below normal and potentially over-eating later in the day.
Most people snack at least once a day, and those snacks can vary from fruits to highly processed snack foods like chips and cookies, among others.
Snacking itself is not bad, but whether your snacking makes your diet healthier or not depends on what you’re eating and how often you’re doing it.
Poor snacking, for example, has been linked to unwanted weight gain and subsequent obesity in many research studies. [3] This is because popular snack foods are very calorie-dense, loaded with fats and sugars, and low in fiber and satiating nutrients.
So, how to improve your nutrition for weight loss? Substitute sugary snacks with these healthy alternatives.
- mixed nuts, including almonds, pistachios, cashews, and peanuts
- low-fat cheese stick
- veggies like celery, bell peppers, and/or carrots with hummus
- Greek yogurt
- hard-boiled egg
- protein shake
- raw fruits with nut butter
#2 Have A Glass Of Warm Water Before Every Meal
Drinking a glass of warm water before meals dilates the blood vessels in the gut, aiding digestion.
Warm water before a meal also enables the movement of food through the gastrointestinal tract, preventing constipation. [4]
Additionally, water before meals will fill up some portion of the stomach, making you unable to eat as much as you would have liked. This reduces calorie intake and helps you better manage or maintain a healthy weight.
#3 If You’re Going To Eat Dessert, Have It Right After Your Main Meal
When changing your eating habits, pay extra attention to desserts. The main problem with them is that they aren’t very nutritious. They are usually laden with sugar and fat, which, when consumed in excess, can cause health issues over time.
To minimize health risks, it’s better to follow a few simple rules:
- avoid eating desserts by themselves, but after a satisfying meal instead,
- have them sparingly,
- have them on occasion.
This will help prevent you from eating too much since you will already feel full after eating your main meal. This way, you are still partaking in eating a treat on occasion without feeling deprived but you aren’t overdoing it.
Having a dessert after a nutritious meal may lead to finding satisfaction after one bite rather than consuming the entire thing due to feeling hungry.
Also, consider more nutritious dessert options like
- strawberries with dark chocolate,
- chia seed pudding,
- yogurt parfait with honey and walnuts,
- homemade whole-grain pastry with berries
Note that frequent dessert cravings may indicate that your diet is not rich in nutrients enough.
#4 Don’t Drink Coffee On An Empty Stomach
Every time you drink coffee, it triggers the production of stomach acids. [5] So, when consuming coffee on an empty stomach, the secreted stomach acids can erode the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in ulcers.
Experts suggest drinking coffee in the mid-morning, ideally with breakfast rather than on an empty stomach.
#5 Avoid Low-Fat Foods
Low-fat products may sound healthier than their regular counterparts; however, avoiding low-fat foods is one of the healthiest dietary habits you can adopt.
They typically contain added sugars and several other filler ingredients to make them more palatable since the fat has been removed. Researchers have now demonstrated that the fat source is the most important factor to consider.