Our habits shape us. Wether they are good or bad. In this post we will discover five healthy eating habits that will help you consistently attain the physique you want whilst enjoying your food.
Our nutrition is one the key factors that get us in shape. It helps us train better, sleep better and look the way we want. Let's get in it.
Healthy eating habit 1: Set your healthy/fun ratio
Determining the balance between healthy and less healthy meals will help you choose what meals to eat and when easily.
A commonly recommended guideline is the 80/20 rule (80% healthy meals, 20% fun meals). While this ratio can vary based on individual factors such as goals, age, and other parameters, it's generally advisable not to go below a 70/30 split. On the other hand, aiming for a ratio higher than 90/10 may not be sustainable for most individuals, except for those with specific body image-related professions like bodybuilders or models.
For instance, if you consume 3 meals a day, seven days a week, following the 80/20 rule would mean having 17 delicious and healthy meals while allowing yourself 4 indulgent ones. This could be a dinner out on Friday, a brunch on Sunday, a client dinner during the week and a fun snack during the week.
Please remember that the "fun" part doesn't imply consuming large amounts of unhealthy food. Fun foods could be anything that you enjoy having that may be a little on the naughty side. Pizza, pastries, ice cream or anything you fancy. But don't go over board, eat a whole pizza and a pint of ice cream and say it's part of your 20% fun.
For individuals focused on cutting, a 90/10 ratio with 3 meals a day each week provides room for 1 or 2 cheat meals per week. Feel free to adjust your ratio based on your progress and desired results.
Healthy eating habit 2: Make your own food
Taking control of your meals is key to maintaining a healthy eating routine and getting in shape quicker. This includes both your regular meals and cheat meals.
Even when we select a balanced meal at a restaurant, we never know for sure how much butter, salt and oil was used in the cooking (it's often way more than we think).
I also think that you can make much better cheat meals at home than going out.
This is why I highly recommend making your own food.
Now, do you need to become your own 5 star chef and cook every day? No. Should you know rudimentary cooking technique to whip up something palatable at home? Yes.
Basic cooking skills that will go a long way include:
Cooking rice/pasta/lentils/semolina - You just add water to a pot and look at what the package tells you to do
Cook chicken - 30 min at 450F (200C) should do the trick in most oven. If not chicken, whatever protein you eat most
Chop/dice veggies - don't let that come in the way of making yummy salads. Especially important for onions and garlic that add so much flavour
Cracking eggs without making a mess
Honestly, these four skills will take you pretty far. You can then work on refining your cook and making fancier meals.
If you don't want to do all the prep yourself you can use a meal prep delivery service that will deliver prepped meals to your door. All you have to do is then cook the ingredients yourself.
You can also go a step further and use a meal delivery service that will bring pre cooked meals to your door.
I personally don't like using these services because they are too pricy for me and the meal delivery service just reminds me of airplane food.
Healthy eating habit 3: Be kitchen smart
Setting up your environment for success is a cheat code to reach your fitness goals quicker.
Ensure that your kitchen is equipped with the necessary tools for cooking healthy meals. That's the hardest thing for me when I travel, poorly equipped kitchens.
Here's a quick list of essential items:
Good knives
Pots and pans
Tupperwares
Salad spinner
Cutting board
Herbs and spices
Good olive oil
Oven with stove pot
Having these items readily available will make cooking healthy meals much easier. These are the items in my kitchen I chose to spend a little more money on because they pay huge dividends.
Tupperwares are a must for meal prepping and storing food for later. This will help you save tons of time down the road.
Have you tried cutting tomatoes with a crappy knife? It drives me crazy. On the other hand, having one good knife makes this process way more fun.
Same with spices. I typically get good quality salt (Himalayan or sea salt), whole peppercorns and oregano. With these three alone I season most of my meals. Once I have those I'll branch out and get thyme, chili peppers, paprika, cinnamon and the list goes on.
Finally, good olive oil is game changer for any type of salads. But do not waste it as cooking oil! Get yourself a cheaper type of oil to put in your pans and save the good stuff to drizzle on your meals.
Healthy eating tip 4: Plan out your meals
You don't need to have a full meal plan ready at all times. Having a general idea of a 4-5 dishes you enjoy is a great place to start. This helps you grocery shop more efficiently and avoid the age old question "What are we going to eat tonight".
You can start this process by identifying which ingredients you want to eat throughout the day and coming up with different combinations for each.
Breakfast: Fruit smoothie or eggs, or both
Elevensies: Small portion of protein with fruits
Lunch: Salad with nuts and a bit more protein
Little snack: Raw veggies with olive oil or avocado
Dinner: Salad with protein, complex carbs, and nuts
This gives you a general outline of what to eat, next you can come up with some recipes you like.
I personally would organize my recipes like this:
Breakfast
Berry smoothie: blueberries, banana, peanut butter, oats, water or milk of choice
Green smoothie: apples, spinach, kale, peanut butter, oats, water or milk of choice
Omelette with tomatoes and mushrooms
Sunny side up eggs
Elevensies
Banana and greek yogurt
Protein shake and peach
Apple with peanut butter
Lunch
Lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes almonds, chicken or salmon. Side of rice or pasta
Spinach, tomatoes, feta, chicken or salmon. Side of rice or pasta
Little snack
Cucumber salad
Avocado
Bell pepper
Dinner
Same as lunch. This saves me time and I find those meals delightful.
Repeating meals is perfectly fine as long as they provide adequate nutrients and you don't get tired of them. I actually encourage it. It saves time in both the grocery and prepping aspect.
Very often I will make my lunch and dinner at the same time. I just make one huge portion at lunch and save half for dinner.
You can rotate these meals as well. You don't always have to eat the same thing over and over. If you have a wide selection of meals, I would recommend alternating them on a weekly basis instead of a daily basis.
This will make grocery shopping and meal prepping much easier for you.
Think about it, if you want to eat 5 different meals that use similar ingredients, it's very simple to organize. On the other hand, if you want to eat something different every lunch and every night, that's 28 meal options over a seven day period. It will make the planning and execution much more complicated.
Finding the right amount of varied meals and the time to prep them is more of an art than a science and a very subjective thing. Take the time to find what works best for you.
Healthy habit 5 : go grocery shopping
Once you have a general idea of your weekly meals, efficient grocery shopping becomes easier. Having a good idea of what you will eat the coming week will save you time and money in the stores.
There should be two types of grocery lists:
One for your typical ingredients you use every week. For me this would be rice, chicken, greek yogurt, berries, bananas, oats, olive oil, spinach, salad, fruits, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers and other veggies. My breakfast is the same most days so I know I have to buy the same ingredients for that every week. I eat chicken, fruit and veggies almost every day so these are also on my regular list.
Special ingredients for weekly meals. We can, and should vary, our meals to keep things fun. Grocery shopping is part of why it's better to vary our menus on a weekly basis vs a daily basis. Instead of having a green salad with chicken, I could opt for a chicken currie. In this instance I would add all the currie ingredients to this week's grocery shopping. Instead of salmon I could choose prawns or shellfish. I can also plan to have a steak one night, which I love having with mashed potatoes.
Having a regular list helps you automate a lot of your shopping. It becomes easier after to have a list that changes on a weekly basis because you will notice that the new ingredients will actually be few.
How often should you grocery shop?
You can get away with just one grocery run in the week if you really want to. Two is better if you can, the reason being that fruits and veggies don't stay very fresh after 4-5 days.
I usually do one big grocery run on Sundays and then a fruit and veggie run on Wednesday or Thursday.
If it's a challenge for you to grocery shop (not enough time, shops far away), you can go shopping just once and plan your meals accordingly.
Eat the salads earlier in the week. Roast veggies for later in the week. Eat the fruits that go bad fast (like fresh berries) early in the week and save those that stay good longer (apples or bananas) for later in the week.
Short on time and use that as an excuse to avoid grocery shopping? Lucky for you we live in an age where you also get your groceries delivered to your door! So there are no excuse to skip this step.
Healthy habit 6 : meal prep
Meal prep is the continuation of the habits 4 and 5. Once you know the recipes you want to do and went grocery shopping for them, get prepping.
Meal prep allows you to save a lot of time during the upcoming week. Once again, you can either do one mega meal prep on a given day, or 2-3 smaller meal preps throughout the week. This will depend on your preferences. I've gone months prepping just once a week but I currently enjoy the more frequent option.
The extent of what you prep is up to you. Here is what I do.
Prep the meats
I mainly eat chicken for the meat. I cook 3-4 breasts at a time so I don't have to do it every lunch or dinner. Since it takes 30 min to cook, I save a whole hour of cooking just by cooking 4 at a time.
Chicken or turkey are the only meats I prep in large quantities. I find that steaks and fish are tastier when cooked fresh.
Meal prepping carbs
Carbs is another super easy thing to prep far in advance. Rice, semolina and quinoa are just a few examples. I make 4-5 portions worth at a time since it's easy to do and easy to store.
Generally speaking, I personally don't like storing food much longer than 5 days as it gets stale. So even with my carbs, I'll do two bigger meal preps per weeks.
Meal prep veggies
Veggies can be either roasted or chopped up.
For roasting, I like putting 4-5 different veggies on one large baking sheet and roasting it all together.
Chopping the veggies can save you time when you make salads throughout the week. I don't recommend meal prepping the whole salad because it gets soggy or goes stale.
But having veggies already chopped will save you time when you assemble you salad.
Once again, meal prep is sort of an individual ritual. Everyone does it differently. Start practicing these last three tips and you'll get the hang of it quick!
Healthy eating recap
Everyone is going to have slightly different eating habits. That's normal. We can identify a few similar traits in the routines of those that are able to stay lean easily.
Take the time to figure out how you could incorporate some of the tips into your daily routine. Do not try to do all of them at once though. Work on one, get good at it, and then move on to the next one.
Making a majority of your food at home will go a very, very long way in how you feel and look. I'm sure you noticed throughout this post but a lot of these tips revolve around that point.
Bon appetit!
Clem
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