If you clicked on this post, then you’re probably not too happy with your eating habits.

You understand that it’s time for a change, but you don’t really know where to start.

You got to the right place!

Lately more and more people are asking me for tips to eat the right way that will lead to controlled weight loss, and others ask me how the hell I eat at so many restaurants and don’t get fat.

The secret for a healthy lifestyle, as you’ve heard in the past, is balance.

There’s no doubt that I eat out a lot, and since I started my blog I also order more dishes to check out the options available at the restaurant, but I still manage to maintain a healthy weight.

The reason – balanced eating habits and sports.

When it comes to sports there are no shortcuts, but when it comes to eating in a balanced way, there are a few tricked I adopted over the years that help me eat healthy without feeling like I’m missing out.

I divided my habits into 7 very easy tips that you can easily follow if you adopt them gradually, until they eventually turn into part of your routine

1. I PLAN MY MEALS IN ADVANCE

Benjamin Franklin once said : “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”. How many times have you wanted to start eating healthy and watch your weight but you couldn’t manage to do that because you didn’t plan a few steps ahead?

You didn’t buy the right things at the supermarket or didn’t plan enough time for cooking and ended up settling for boring food that you’re sick of eating, or worse – industrial food, store-bought or just unhealthy?

I know that it happened to me way too many times!

The best solution to this problem is simply to plan your meals for the week in advance, according to the criteria that match your lifestyle, your food preferences and the menu you want to stick to.

Before your weekly grocery shopping, look for interesting recipes and prepare a weekly chart with times to prepare these foods and of course make a detailed shopping list including all of the ingredients you’ll need in order to make these dishes.

If this is too much for you and you don’t really know where to search {you can find a ton of recipes on Pinterest!} or if you don’t have time to deal with it, I highly recommend signing up to eMeals {it’s so good -they even have a free 2-week-trial}.

eMeals is a great site that offers a service which creates menus especially for you, and prepares a shopping list every week according to a wide variety of diets {fast and healthy, paleo, low-fat, 30-minute-meals, gluten-free and more}.

Not only will this service save you a lot of time and hassle, it’s available on their website and on the company’s app which makes it available and easy to use at any time.

This service is also excellent economically {for US residents} because it helps plan your grocery budget according to the supermarket chains they work with {ALDI, Kroger, Publix, Ralphs, Safeway, Target, Walmart, Whole Foods} and automatically adds their sale items to your weekly shopping list.

2. I ALWAYS EAT BREAKFAST 

The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who can’t start their day without eating a hearty breakfast, and those that just the thought of food in the morning makes them sick.

I belong to the first type and it’s very rare that I could survive the day without eating at least something small until lunch. Not only does my stomach start growling from the second I open my eyes, but I feel a general weakness until my body gets what it needs.

I’ve always been this way – I got used to eating every morning from a young age and this excellent habit is part of my daily routine.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” – I know you’ve already heard this sentence hundreds of times, but there’s a good reason breakfast is considered this way when it comes to a healthy lifestyle and eating correctly.

Did you know that studies show that people who eat breakfast are less prone to obesity?

And people who would rather skip breakfast have a slower metabolism since their bodies think that there isn’t food available – which makes your body hold on to the fat instead of getting rid of it.

If that wasn’t enough to convince you to eat something small to break the night fasting, this will probably do the trick –

People who skip breakfast tend to crave foods that are rich in fats and sugars like snacks, cookies or pastries before lunch, as opposed to people who make sure to eat breakfast and are less likely to fall for those “traps”.

Convinced you shouldn’t skip this important meal but you just don’t think your body will cooperate with you in the morning?

Don’t fight your body – do it gradually!

There’s no doubt that not everyone can digest huge meals {like these} early in the morning, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t adopt this habit of “starting up” your digestive system by eating something small in the morning that will give your body available energy, like a date and walnuts/almonds or a refreshing green shake.  

After you get your body used to the consumption of a moderate amount of food in the morning, you could proceed to more filling foods like chia pudding or a nutritional vegetable frittata.

3. I ALWAYS KEEP HEALTHY SNACKS HANDY

We all know the phrase “I’m in the mood for something tasty”, right?

The need to snack on something starts during the tough hours of the day {usually during the afternoon and evening}, when your sugar drops and your body develops an appetite for something sweet or salty.

Whoever knows me knows that I love snacks!

There’s no chance I could eat 3 huge meals a day to avoid snacking between meals. The opposite, I always prefer eating lighter and more balanced meals and leaving room for guilt-free snacks.

What do I mean by guilt-free snacks? Healthy snacks that return energy to the body during the hours “something tasty” is needed.

If you won’t have healthy snacks handy, you’ll most likely be tempted to eat things you’ll regret a second after eating them, like cookies or snacks, or you’ll get to the next meal “starving” and you’ll eat a lot more than you intended to.

Whether your need to snack on something small between meals happens at home or at work, you should prepare healthy snack in advance, like fresh fruit, a mix of dates, walnuts and almonds, a chia pudding delicacy, homemade energy bars and even a slice of whole-grain bread with tahini or low-fat cheese.

4. I EAT SLOWLY

As part of our hectic and fast-paced lives, most people eat too fast, chewing too little and mostly eating while being distracted by driving, watching television or talking on the phone.

When we eat too fast we go into “automatic eating” mode – we don’t really pay attention to what we’re eating and the quantities entering our bodies, and as a result, at the end of the meal we don’t feel satisfied and we want to eat more.

Beyond that, it’s known that it takes around 20 minutes for the stomach to signal to the brain that it’s full and that there’s no need to continue eating. So when we eat too fast, we aren’t giving our brain the chance to signal that we’re full – and that leads to overeating which eventually leads to weight gain.

As a little girl I never saw anything wrong with eating quickly, the opposite – because I ate fast and I was very skinny, I always had a dream of participating in one of those crazy American food contests I always saw on TV.

After my release from the army, and following a few extra kilograms I gained during my service, I read a lot of articles about controlled weight loss and discovered that not only is it not healthy to eat fast, it’s also very fattening.

I decided to adopt the habit of eating slower – I increased the number of chews {which makes the digestion easier} and I started putting my fork down in between bites consciously. Slowly, this habit became natural for me and now when I eat with people, I really feel the difference between the way they eat and the way I eat.

5. I DRINK A LOT OF WATER {BUT NOT DURING MEALS}

One of the best habits I adopted after the army was avoiding drinking sweetened drinks and drinking water and sparkling water exclusively.

After all, why should I drink these {empty} calories instead of enjoying the occasional sins that are actually worth the calorie intake?

Of course it didn’t happen overnight, but from being addicted to peach Nestea and Zero Coke, I got to a point where almost any industrial sweet drink {whether with calories or without} disgusted me {I swear!}.

I know it sounds really old, but sparkling water with lemon and mint really do the job when I want to drink something tasty

Even if you stopped drinking sweetened drinks and you switched to those without calories or sugar – it’s important to know that they aren’t much better.

Water or sparkling water are the key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and speeding up the weight loss process – that’s why I make sure to drink a big glass of water with lemon every morning, keep a big bottle handy throughout the day and make sure to drink a glass of water before every meal.

The only time I’ll say “no” to a cold glass of water is during a meal, since drinking during the meal interferes with the regular digestion process.

The liquids dilute the digestive fluids and stop the activity of enzymes. Even in restaurants I always ask for a drink before ordering food and I finish it before they serve the dish, so I feel more full and I let my digestive system work the right way 😉  

6. MY FIELD OF VISION IS CLEAN OF “ENEMIES”

Distractions that cause us to eat unhealthy food are plentiful when we’re out of the house and even tempt us through our television and computer screens at home.

If there’s something that could really make me sin uncontrollably at home it’s when the countertop is full of food that’s better to be out of my field of vision – like chocolates, nuts and even cereals.

When all of the temptations are on the countertop, it’s a lot more difficult to hold back and chances are that we’ll snack on too many things that we should only eat on special occasions.

Familiar with the phrase “out of sight, out of mind”? Then it’s time to implement it with all of the things you would rather not eat during your next hunger attack 😉 Remove all of the snacks, candies and munchies you bought for guests from your eyesight and store them in a special drawer or cabinet.

This won’t make you completely stop eating them {if that’s your goal and you live alone – just don’t buy that stuff  }, but it will definitely make you eat less of it.

Instead of all of these “enemies” place a tempting plate of fruits on the countertop – because if you’re going to snack on something, it should at least be healthy.

I apply the same principle to our fridge – I place all of the fruits, vegetables, low-fat cheeses and healthy homemade food {like these vegan baked fritters} in the front of the top shelves of the fridge, and all of the more industrial and fattening {dairy products and store-bought salads} items are stored in a closed drawer or at the back of the shelves, so they aren’t the first to pop out.

This method is especially good if you live with someone who isn’t as careful about eating healthy and likes to buy foods that you wouldn’t usually buy yourself {it worked well for me when I first moved in with Daniel and he used to buy a lot more junk 😉 }.

7. I EAT ON SMALL PLATES

This last habit that helps me keep eating healthy food doesn’t concern the food itself, but the size of the plate.

As the amount of food we consume grows over the years, the size of the dishes we eat from grow, too. If you compare the plates and glasses sold these days to the ones sold years ago, you’ll notice a very big difference.

A bigger plate makes us eat more, especially if you were brought up being told to “finish everything on your plate”, and that’s why I recommend starting to eat from smaller plates.

Think about it this way – the same amount of food will seem bigger on a small plate, and will make you more satisfied psychologically.

It’s always better to add more food to your plate if you’re still hungry at the end of the meal, than eating too much food just because it’s on the plate

What are your tricks to maintain your healthy eating?

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