Eating Right: How to Make the Transition

You're young, you're busy, and you're on a budget.  Quick, cheap, and easy is your priority when it comes to food.  Unfortunately, most of the food that fits these criteria, is crap.  It's all too easy to get sucked into a cycle of eating poorly.  However, an unhealthy diet negatively impacts more areas of your life than you realize: not only does it lead to weight gain, but it's bad for your skin, you'll find yourself constantly tired and lacking energy, experiencing mood swings, and having trouble sleeping.  A healthy diet is key to the busy life you lead, and speaking from experience, once you start good habits when it comes to your nutrition, it's easier than you realize to keep up.  Here's some tips to start you on your way.

First and foremost, follow the tried-and-true rule: eat breakfast.  A lot of people claim they're just not hungry in the morning, and their reasoning for not eating breakfast seems perfectly logical: Why eat when you're not hungry?  But, think about it.  Your body just went 6-8 hours (depending on your sleep patterns, maybe it's less or more..) without fuel.  How do you expect it to be ready for the day?  However, this doesn't mean a full stack of pancakes or a bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant.  A nutritious breakfast can be healthy, quick, and low-calories.  There are plenty of great granola or energy bar options, most averaging under 200 calories.  Oatmeal is also a great and very filling option.  And, for that little extra pep in your step, a protein-packed breakfast of two hardboiled eggs, or an egg-white omelet, are perfect choices.  

Next, if you don't buy it, you won't eat it. Next time you're at the grocery store, skip the ice-cream aisle.  Then skip the chip and candy aisle.  When these unhealthy options are sitting in your cupboard, you'll very rarely pass them by and decide to eat the carrots in your fridge instead.  The simple solution is not to buy them.  A couple good decisions in the grocery store and your work is done for you.  

Finally, never go too long in between meals.  A lot of people don't plan time to eat into their day, and when a busy day gets the best of you, before you know it it's 8 pm and you're absolutely ravenous.  This is when you shove whatever is closest to you in your mouth and eat and eat until you're absolutely stuffed.  In this situation, you're eating way more than your body needs.  By not letting your hunger get to this point, you'll make better choices and eat less.  

Now, I realize it's impractical to say that if you follow these suggestions, you'll never eat unhealthily again.  You will.  Everyone does.  The key to these indulgences, though, is to not let them happen too often.  Promise yourself that only once a week, for one meal,  you will allow yourself to eat whatever you want.  If this means ordering a large pizza, or having your favorite pint of Ben and Jerry's, that's ok.  Because it only happens once a week.  Not only is it ok to enjoy our food, but we're supposed to.