Eating Healthy Doesn’t Have to Suck
When you hear the term, “eating healthy,” you immediately picture broccoli, kale, and all the other greens that your parents probably tried to force you to eat as a child. If you were like me, you preferred to starve than eat anything green (or wait until everyone was in bed and sneak into the kitchen for the good stuff - don’t judge me!)
As I got older, though, I realized I couldn’t survive on a diet of fried chicken, pizza and french fries. At least, not if I wanted to look and feel the way I was used to. (Why is it that you can eat whatever you want when you’re growing up and your body is none the wiser, but the second you become an adult, all the goodies make you bloated and tired? It’s extremely unfair and misleading, but I digress).
The moral of this little story is that I had to learn to “eat healthy,” which was harder than learning to work out consistently because, well, I just love everything they say is bad for you!
It Definitely Sucked at First
I started my healthy eating journey by using the 21 Day Fix Portion Control containers from Beachbody. At the time, my budget was pretty tight so I used an off-brand version (which was the same concept, just with differently colored containers) and I was using T25 DVDs (remember those?) that I bought off eBay. (Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do). Nowadays, Beachbody has upgraded quite a bit and you can stream all of the workout programs online with a yearly subscription, but I’m talking about 8 years ago.
The containers taught me how to manage my portions based on what my nutrition goals were. At the time, I was trying to lose weight from having my first baby. (I had a 7-day cruise planned and I would be damned if I was going to wear a one-piece on my first baby-free vacation). So that meant I had to eat mostly vegetables and severely limit my carbs. In addition, the carbs that I could eat were ones I had never tried before—brown rice, whole grain bread, stuff I used to refer to as “rabbit food.”
Y’all…it was tough. I had no idea how to cook vegetables, and even less of a clue how to make them taste good. But I put my big girl pants on and ate basically flavorless, steamed vegetables for about 8 months. The weight came off, but once I went on that cruise, a lot of it came right back on. It wasn’t until almost a year after having baby number two that I finally lost all the weight I wanted to lose, but I still hadn’t learned how to make eating healthy suck less. That meant that whenever I indulged, I would go all out because I felt like I’d been deprived.
The Key is in the Preparation
In order to make this eating healthy thing a lifestyle and not just something I do when I have a weight loss goal, I had to learn how to cook and put meals together that were actually yummy, instead of just throwing lettuce and tomatoes together to survive. Eating healthy means choosing vegetables and protein more often than not, so I either have to love them or suffer, and life is meant to be joyful.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Eat the rainbow. The more colorful your plate looks, the more appetizing it will be.
Don’t be stingy with the seasoning. Salt and pepper are a great baseline for seasoning, but they aren’t enough to make your food flavorful. There are so many herbs, spices and oils (olive oil, paprika, thyme, to name a few) that can make bland food taste so much better. And speaking of seasoning…
Buy organic seasonings and spices. I once took a cooking class and learned that spices aren’t always made of what it says on the label. I’ll use cinnamon as an example. Cinnamon actually comes from the bark of a tree. If you buy the organic kind, you get the freshly ground bark which smells and tastes amazing because it goes straight from the tree, into the container, and onto the shelf at the store. Cinnamon that isn’t organic needs to be processed and have preservatives added to give it a longer shelf life. Over time, the flavor diminishes because of the chemicals which means that, by the time you buy it, you’re basically just buying saw dust. I thought this was a load of crap when I first heard it, but then I did a smell test. I took a whiff of inorganic cinnamon, which was pleasant enough, and then a whiff of organic cinnamon and ho-ly-moly…the difference was unreal. (If you try this, please don’t take a huge whiff like the lady next to me did. She was sneezing cinnamon for a week).
Figure out what you like, then tailor your cooking to that. I like my veggies to have a little crunch to them. Soggy broccoli is pretty much the grossest thing I’ve ever tasted, so I’m partial to just searing my vegetables, rather than letting them cook all the way through. I had to learn this through trial and error because most recipes will call for you to cook them all the way through. The ONLY exception to this is green beans - those I like cooked thoroughly, and with a dash of sundried tomatoes (try it, you’ll thank me later).
Load the plate. A lot of nutrition programs will have you limiting the amount of food you eat, even if it’s healthy. The issue with that is you’re left unsatisfied, which leaves you more likely to overeat later on (like right before bed, when you are, for whatever reason, the hungriest you’ve ever been in your life). Overeating is never a good idea, but you can load up on quite a bit of vegetables and still be well within your calorie intake goals.
Eat slowly. By this, I don’t mean that you should chew each bite 15 times or anything like that, but you should definitely pause between bites, sip water, and pay attention to when you start to feel satisfied. Eating too quickly will make it hard to tell when you’ve really had enough, until it’s too late and you feel the bloat coming on.
Have fun with it! Your mindset has a lot to do with this new healthy eating journey. It’s a major change, especially if you have successfully avoided vegetables most of your life, but keep in mind why you’re doing it in the first place. Your body needs fuel and the kind of food you eat determines your energy levels, ability to focus, and your overall health. I know you’ve heard this before but exercise is only 20% of the work. The other 80% is done in the kitchen. Try new foods, use new seasonings, and get creative. Even if you have to bread and fry your zucchini before you can find it tasty, that’s STILL better than a plate of french fries.
Want to learn more?
Here is the shameless, obligatory plug - if you want to learn more about eating healthy, or anything else fitness and nutrition related, let’s connect! You can follow me on IG or send me a message. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start spamming you - I’m way too busy! I’m just here to help anyone who is ready to start something new :)
