“You are what you eat” is a common saying used in emphasizing the importance of eating healthy. Our wellbeing is to a much extend determined by what we eat, our lifestyle and what we are exposed to. Eating healthy is the easiest way of maintaining your health. It is true that eating healthy may be a little challenging even difficult to tackle, however it assists in breaking down the main goal of healthy living into smaller goals.

Eating healthy will not only maintain and promote your health but it also helps in improving the way you feel and look. It also helps you to heal and recover quickly as well as increasing you energy levels. In order to achieve the big goal of eating healthy it is important to handle one small goal at a time. Also, you should always look at the ultimate goal (wellbeing) and let it motivate you in accomplishing this difficult but yet easy task. Your Melbourne, Fl internal medicine doctor offers five ways to eating healthy;

Eating Smaller

Serve yourself small portion of food in every meal and ensure that you maintain a balanced diet. According to the US Department of Agriculture the required serving of meat is roughly the size of a playing card while that of fruit or vegetable is the size of your palm. The easiest way to achieve this is by using a small plate.

Eating Slowly

Studies have shown that by eating slowly over an extended period of time makes one to feel satisfied irrespective of the amount of food taken. In addition, ensure that you chew food thoroughly as this aid in digestion.

Pick Color

The best way of improving you nutritional intake is by selecting colorful foods. It is recommended that you eat three or four servings of vegetables every day, together with 2 to 4 of fruit. The valuable elements in a fruit or vegetable are what it gives its color. For instance, anthocyanins is what makes blue berries blue, beta-carotene is what makes carrots orange and lycopenes brands tomatoes red. White vegetables e.g. onions and garlics, have high nutritional value, but majority is usually colorful.

Eat More Fish

Most meat products are high-calorie and high fat foods whereas baked or grilled fish e.g. Salmon is among the most healthful. Doing away with meat in favor of grilled or baked fish is one of the ways of reducing fat and calories. Alternatively, you can reduce meat intake by taking only lean meat e.g. skinless chicken and avoid eating meat daily.

Drink Water

Most people consume a lot of energy drinks, soft drinks and other sweetened pick-me-ups every single day. Substituting these drinks with water will go a long way in promoting healthy eating and healthy living. It is always difficult to do away with caffeinated drinks because of caffeine withdrawal symptom however, you can cut back on it slowly by slowly or alternatively you can switch to green tea.

Consider Grains

Another essential way of eating healthy is changing from white bread to whole grain bread but the switch should not be to whole grain bread alone, there are other grain foods. For instance you can substitute white rice with refined flour. Whole-grain, sugar free cereals can substitute the sugar laden ones. Note that, whole-grained foods are more flavorful. In addition it is more nutritious and more filling.