A balanced diet is your key to leading a healthy life. Not only will it help you in attaining your ideal weight and that perfect body, but it will also leave you feeling energized. A healthy diet offers many benefits, including a reduced risk of several diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and obesity.
What constitutes a healthy lifestyle?
In simple terms, a healthy lifestyle constitutes eating mindfully, regular exercise, 7-8 hours of good sleep and trying to stay happy and stress-free.
One can easily start living a healthy lifestyle by becoming aware of what he/she is eating regularly and how this food item can impact his/her overall health.
Living a healthy lifestyle means maintaining discipline when it comes to eating. Our body is like a machine and it needs the best kind of fuel to run actively. Thus, what you eat really matters!
What type of foods should you avoid?
Grabbing and eating a packet of chips seem easier than (say) preparing and eating a bowl full of salad.
If your goal is to start living a healthy lifestyle, you should start avoiding the below-mentioned category of foods:
- Packaged and processed foods
- Foods containing artificial flavours
- Sodas and sugary drinks
- Junk food
- Convenient foods (like chips) that can contain saturated and trans fats.
How to start a healthy lifestyle and stick to it?
Alas! If only following a healthy diet was that easy! As you walk down a street, the mouth-watering aromas of junk food come wafting down the street, making you forget all about your healthy diet.
So, what do you do to keep your healthy diet on track?
Read on and you will have some good tips on how to stick to your healthy diet.
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Have a Motivation Factor
Before you even start dieting, pen down your top reasons for following a diet. Find out a strong motivating factor that would make you stick to your diet for a long time. A great example of a long-time motivating factor can be given by considering the example of a hiker. Hiking enthusiasts would always want to maintain their health by following a healthy diet. Likewise, you can find a love that requires you to stay healthy.
Internal motivation to lose weight and self-motivation have been identified as predictors of successful weight control. The motivation factors may vary from person to person but each motivation factor has the power to instill the sense of living a healthy life in the mind of the person.
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Wisely Choose Your Diet
There are a number of diets in the market today and you need to choose the right one for you. Take into consideration your taste buds and the foods you love, and then look out for the possible diets that majorly include your favourite foods. If you do not put enough thought into it, you might end up adopting a diet that you find hard to follow. One such diet is the Ketogenic diet or Keto diet. Many find it hard to follow as the diet’s primary rule of carb elimination is found to be very hard to stick to. So, make sure that you choose a diet that you can follow in the long run. Remember, your goal is not short term. You are focussing on a lifestyle change.
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Plan Your Meals
Planning your meals well in advance helps you in a number of ways. Not only do you manage your time effectively, but also win in restraining yourself from indulging in binge eating. With the groceries shopped in advance, you even manage to keep the unhealthy, highly processed food out of your refrigerator. You become capable of sticking to home-cooked meals.
Also, meal planning helps in enjoying a large variety of foods. When we run out of time, we usually end up cooking and eating the same stuff time and again. When you follow a healthy meal plan, you can decide in advance the type of foods you would be eating over the course of the week. You can incorporate different fruits, vegetables, grains etc. in your meal plan.
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Get a Buddy
A buddy can be a close friend or a relative of yours who keeps you accountable. Going the extra mile, they push you and motivate you in sticking to your plan. It isn’t really necessary to find someone who is following a diet alongside you. You just need them to carry you back on track whenever your fitness wagon gets derailed.
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Reward yourself
We all know quite well what cheat meals are. After following your diet, you must reward yourself with treats to continue on your fitness journey. Indulge in small bites of chocolate cake or have ice cream to satisfy your sweet cravings, once in a while.
Having a cheat meal once a week can actually act as a motivation factor and help you in continuing with the diet. You would feel happy and satisfied after enjoying your favourite dessert or snack as a cheat meal and would be able to continue your diet easily.
Just remember, have a cheat meal (not a cheat day).
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Plan your party meals
If you have been invited to attend a party, then your chances of indulging in junk food are high. As a solution, you can either have your home-cooked meals before attending the party or look out for fruits, veggies, and lean protein to fill yourself up.
This would make sure that you don’t lose track of your diet and can still have a great time at the party.
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Research restaurants before traveling
If you are leaving your home to travel for a business meeting or for a vacation, then it is recommended to search in advance for eateries that have a healthy menu. Once you have reached the restaurant, look for items that are healthy and won’t affect your diet in a negative manner. Avoid drinking sugary beverages. Instead, opt for plain water. In fact, drinking a good quantity of water will make you feel full and therefore reduce any chances of you picking up an unhealthy snack or dessert.
You can even carry some healthy snacks like energy bars to keep yourself from going for the street or junk food while travelling.
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Do not be too hard on yourself
Many times, people mistake sticking to a diet as a strict regimen. In order to follow their diet plans properly, fitness freaks skip breakfast but have no control by evening as they give in to their hunger pangs. While sticking to your diet plan is essential to be rewarded in the end, it is of prime importance to adapt to the situation at hand and adjust your diet accordingly.
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Track your progress
Many studies have proven that tracking your lifestyle can actually help you in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
You can track many aspects of a healthy lifestyle like an exercise routine, eating habits, sleep pattern, water intake etc.
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Include some sort of exercise regime in your day to day life
According to a study, one of the best predictors of success in the long-term management of overweight and obesity is the ability to develop and sustain an exercise program. It has been proven time and again that exercise helps in the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle.
Incorporate some sort of workout routine in your life and you would soon start witnessing the positive results of having an exercise routine.
Follow these tips and you might find yourself always on the right track with your healthy diet. Remember that it takes time to break off habits and form new ones. You must pledge to stick to your diet until it becomes your way of living.
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Author: Ketki Hanamshet (Digital Marketing Manager, INFS)
