10 Healthy Eating Rules Everyone Can Follow

The phrase “healthy eating” scares many people and associates them with steamed vegetables or lean chicken breast. In fact, it’s not so scary. You don’t have to give up your favorite foods and you can even allow yourself treats. The main thing is not to forget about a sense of proportion and balance of nutrients.

It makes more sense to eat right all the time than to sit on a diet that gives short-term results. A balanced diet not only helps you gradually lose weight, but also helps you feel better.

But giving up fats or carbohydrates, which many diets call for, can provoke health problems. Your body should get all the macronutrients and trace elements it needs on a daily basis.

1. Use only fresh, natural products

Semi-finished products, products in a package with a lot of preservatives, coloring agents, flavor enhancers do not fit into a system of healthy eating. After all, such food enormously increases the load on the body, contributes to slagging of the intestines, slows down metabolism and prevents the removal of toxins. So any piece of meat baked in the oven is healthier than store-bought sausage, even the best produced.

2. Limit refined foods

Refined foods are deprived of such an important component as fiber, which is necessary for the work of the digestive organs, feeding the lacto- and bifidumbacteria that inhabit the intestinal walls.

In practice, this means that instead of white loaf, it is better to eat wholemeal bread, and instead of white rice – brown rice. Ordinary refined sugar can be replaced by honey, agave syrup, topinambur or other natural sugars.

3. Fruits and vegetables every day

Try to eat at least 300 grams of fresh vegetables and 300 grams of fresh fruit every day. With these foods you get soluble and insoluble fiber and essential vitamins.

It is easiest to take an apple or pear cut into slices, carrot or celery sticks with you to work. In this way, you won’t even notice how you eat the necessary amount of fruits and vegetables and satisfy your hunger at the same time.

4. Stick to protein foods

First of all, they give you a feeling of fullness for a long time. Second, it is rich in essential amino acids. Such foods include different kinds of meat, rabbit, guinea fowl, quail, fish and seafood, cod, perch, shrimp, squid, scallops and others.

5. Use a variety of vegetable oils

These are the best source of essential fatty acids (like linoleic acid). It is good if you have 4-5 bottles of a variety of oils in your kitchen – linseed, grape seed, sesame, olive, walnut.

6. Adhere to a regimen

Too infrequent meals are as harmful as continuous snacking. Try to have 3-4 meals a day, as a gap of more than 5 hours slows down the metabolism and sets the body to economical expenditure of energy. The consequence is the accumulation of fat deposits.

You should not chew all the time either. Don’t snack at the workplace, while watching TV or reading social media. So you do not control the process of food consumption, you do not feel satiated and cannot stop in time. As a result, you eat more than you need.

7. Limit fast carbohydrates

Sugar from sweets and baked goods is quickly absorbed into the blood and immediately raises glucose levels. This is followed by an equally rapid drop in glucose, and you’re hungry again. In addition, such rapid fluctuations in sugar have a negative effect on the body’s functioning.

8. Careful with Salt

If you use table salt, you should use sea salt or Himalayan salt. Common salt has only two trace elements – sodium and chlorine, while sea salt has up to 90 of them. And of course, you should try to gradually reduce your salt intake. There is no need to give it up altogether. But too much salt causes fluid retention in the body, leading to edema and high blood pressure.

9. Drink water

Drink no less than 30-35 milliliters of liquid per one kilogram of your weight. Remember that coffee and juices do not replace water. By the way, it is better to give up juices and sweet fizzy drinks in general, as they contain too much sugar.

10. Cook food properly

Minimal heat treatment is the key to maintaining the integral structure of food. For example, you can boil cereals or pasta for just a few minutes. It can make it a little stiff (al dente) and retain its healthy starch. For meat and fish, boiling, steaming, baking in the oven and (for a change!) grilling are the most suitable methods.

And do not forget that sometimes it is not a crime to allow yourself a sausage sandwich or a cake. The main thing is that such a menu should not become a daily diet.