Healthy Eating Tips

I get a lot of people, every day, asking me how to eat. Well it's actually pretty simple. The HARD thing is the preparation and planning that goes into it. One day a week, plan out your entire week's menu to avoid this.

There are a few key things to watch:
* PORTION CONTROL - make sure you eat 5-6 small meals a day
* WATER - drink plenty of it, 2 glasses of water with every meal, and at least one glass of water before you eat will help to curb your appetite. Also, make sure you add and extra glass of water for every coffee, caffeinated tea, fruit juice or soft drink (diet only softdrinks please!)
* In every meal, select ONE CARBOHYDRATE, ONE PROTEIN and as many vegetables or salad as you need. I have included a full list of these below. To make it easy, you should be eating one handful of CARBOHYDRATE and one handful of PROTEIN at each meal, you can have as much salad and vegetables which appear in the protein category as you like.
* If you are cooking for your whole family, make the meal the same for everyone. Your family should be supporting your efforts, and this way of eating is healthy for all of them. Australia has the highest rate of obesity per capita IN THE WORLD so now is a good time to start educating your children about what they should be eating.
* Go to your cupboard RIGHT NOW and throw out (or give to neighbours you don't like and want to make fat) anything you know isn't good for you. Then the temptation is not there for you to eat when you feel like caving in!
* Try and put an extra serve of non protein vegies in every meal, it will fill you up more and add extra nutrients to make you feel better.
* Stock up on healthy snacks (1 protein + 1 carbohydrate) to keep in the car, in your handbag, at work, or anywhere you are likely to get stuck in an emergency situation. My faves are trail mix, yoghurts with nuts or muesli bars (choose these wisely as many are high in sugar).
* One day a week, eat whatever you like. This will allow your body to understand you are not in starvation mode. So go for it! During your week anything you really feel like eating, but know is bad, put on a list. On your free day, you can eat any of these foods, if you then feel like it. You'll be surprised how much your appetite changes over the week!
* Prepare every meal fresh where possible and use fresh vegies/salad, if possible.
* Deliberately look to introduce foods into your diet that are high in antioxidants. Some examples are blueberries, green tea, green vegetables.
* NEVER NEVER EVER skip breakfast - it is the most important meal of the day as it elevates your insulin levels for the day, meaning your body does not stay in the fasting state.
* Anything you are not cooking fresh, look at the labels. Run your eye over to the last column (per 100g). I classify this as percentage. Now look down to sugar and fat content, remembering that if it reads 30g, that is 30%, for example. If your package is less than 10% fat and less than 10% sugar, you can take it home... if not, look for an alternative!

PROTEIN:
Chicken breast, skin off
Chicken mince, low fat
Turkey or turkey mince
Kangaroo
Beef mince, low fat
Cuts of meat with no fat
Cottage cheese (VERY GOOD SOURCE OF PROTEIN)
Low-fat cheese (moderation only)
Nuts (moderation only as they are high in healthy fats)
Oats*
Low fat milk*
Quinoa*
Yoghurt*
Baked beans
Chick peas
Lentils
Tuna
* These foods contains both carbs and proteins in more or less equal quantities so cannot be classified as either but are still good to eat.

CARBOHYDRATE:
Bread
Wheat
Flour
Rice
Weetbix
Fruit
Potato
Pasta
Pumpkin
Sweet potato
Bread
Polenta
Couscous

VEGETABLES and SALAD
Fresh, tinned, or frozen.

Healthy Eating all!