10 Ways to Eat Healthier

For this weeks Friday Foodie post I want to focus on changes you can make in your diet to be healthier.  I am on a 10 day juice cleanse (today is day 5!) so I don't have many food pictures to show you.  So here we go!

10 Ways to Eat Healthier

1. Eat vegetarian/vegan at least once a week. Seriously. People eat way too much dairy and meat; it's not good for you!  The more you can cut back, the better, but if you can dedicate one whole day to it that is easier for some people. Give it a try!
2. Eat more fruits/veggies. Like, eat them at every meal. They are so freakin' good for us! It's like natural medicine.
3. Add superfoods to your diet. Things like wheatgrass, goji berries, acai and so on. Superfoods are generally foods that contain a ton of vitamins/minerals/nutrients without really having anything that is bad for you in them. Some are more "super" than others. Here is a long list of foods that qualify.
4. Eat raw more often. This is something I have been working on. Raw food is unprocessed, contains more nutrients than cooked foods and is generally very healthy.  Some great raw blogs include Raw Clarity, Choosing Raw, Organic Kale Tumblr, Raw Living Foods Tumblr and Eat More Fruit Tumblr.  Here is a great raw foods shopping list of essential items.
5. A lot of people get very caught up in calories and how many they are consuming. I used to. Now I don't worry about it because I know the majority of the foods I choose are naturally low in calories, as many unprocessed vegan foods are. Instead of worrying so much about how many calories you consume, focus on where those calories are coming from. In other words, it is better to eat more calories from a healthy source than fewer from unhealthy sources. All calories are not created equal!
6. Don't rely on supplements, not even multivitamins.  That industry is making a ton of money off of people who would rather pop a pill in their mouth than eat healthy foods!  You should always try to get as much of your vitamins and minerals from food sources first. Use supplements only on days where you don't reach your goal with one or more vitamins. I take a calcium or B12 supplement some days because I am often low on those things but I do not rely on them.
7. Drink your water! Every day! No, don't add sweeteners to eat or try to pass of your hot mug of tea as a serving of water. Drink plain ol' water, filtered if you prefer, every day. I am for 8 glasses.
8. Do not buy genetically modified foods. If you buy organic only, that is an easy way to avoid it. If your produce has a number 8 followed by 4 numbers, it is GMO. Read about that here.
9. Don't worry about thinking in terms of "breakfast, lunch dinner". It took me a while to get away from that but now I think of it as just times to eat! The problem with three meals is we tend to over eat! I prefer to eat every couple hours but smaller amounts. 
10. Portion control. I think this is a big issue for a lot of people. It kind of goes hand in hand with what I said above. If you can learn to eat smaller amounts but eat often enough, you will do well. It's easier on the metabolism. If you need to get a few food groups in one meal, you can do that without having such large portions. I also find this easier to do as someone who doesn't eat meat.

And the few pictures I have from this week...

juiced 1 orange, 1/2 sweet potato, 1 grapefruit and 2 carrots

a salad I made for my husband on a bed of yellow rice. There's lettuce, cheddar cheese, black beans, olives, onion and spinach. The dressing is just a mixture of mayo, mustard, salt, pepper, garlic salt and water.

1 small lemon, 2 granny smith apples, 1/2 cucumber, 1 bunch kale, 4 stalks celery, 1 head broccoli

 (boots + top Old Navy, jeans + sweater Target, scarf gift/Le Chateau)

 more juice. I forget what's in these ones.

Last meal before my cleanse. Tofu nuggets, chickpea salad, slice of Greek pizza, hummus and pita bread!

homemade Greek pizza