Defining Healthy Eating for You

One of the biggest challenges for healthy eating isn’t developing the habits but defining what eating a healthy diet means to you. This will be different for everyone, so before you start adding new healthy eating habits to your day, you need to understand what healthy means for YOU.

What Are Your Current Eating Habits?

To figure out what you want your healthy eating to look like, you need to start with how you eat now. Write down what you eat in a typical week, not just one day. Days can change throughout the week, so you really need to look at your diet overall.

Take a few days to write down what you eat, when your mealtimes are, when you snacked, and little eating habits that you don’t think are the best for you.

What Do You Need to Change?

Once you have looked at everything you eat and analyzed it, what jumped out at you as something you want to change? The more you think about foods you aren’t a pretty sure fit into a healthy routine, the more you will discover what your definition of healthy eating is going to be.

This might be snacking a lot after dinner and before going to bed. The healthy eating habit you incorporate is just eating a more nutritious and filling dinner to avoid snacking. Other people might find that healthy eating is about having more plant-based foods as they don’t currently have enough of them.

What Do You Consider a Healthy Diet?

Now, get more detailed about what you think of when you think of healthy diets. This can mean so many things, but here are some examples:

• Eating more whole foods
• Whole grains, fruits, and veggies
• Limited or no snacking between meals
• Little dairy and high-fat foods
• Fewer sweets and sugary foods
• Limited refined carbs

How Can You Develop These Healthier Eating Habits?

When you have defined healthy eating and better understand what you want to change in your lifestyle, what are some ways you can add healthy eating to your routine? By now, you should understand your definition of healthy eating and have some ways to switch up your eating. Remember, this is not about going on a diet, but making changes that you will stick to consistently.