Daily Healthy Eating Plan

Having a daily healthy eating plan is a great way to keep yourself on track and make positive changes in your diet that will keep you healthy for the rest of your life.

Know Your Priorities

The first step in developing a daily healthy eating plan is knowing what you want to get out of your diet, or, more specifically, what healthy means to you. Do you want to lose weight? Fuel muscle building? Maintain a healthy weight? Have a healthy pregnancy or raise healthy kids?

Each of these goals can be accomplished with the help of a healthy diet, but healthy looks slightly different depending on your ultimate goal.

For instance if you're trying to lose weight you need to figure out the number of calories you need to cut from your current diet (or burn through exercise) to meet your weight loss goal. If you're looking to build muscle, you'll need more protein than someone who's just looking for a healthy maintenance diet. And a healthy diet for children and teenagers is different than the perfect plan for adults.

Daily Healthy Eating Plan Tips

To start planning your daily healthy eating plan, consider where you already are. You might want to keep a food diary for a week or so, writing down everything you eat and compare it with what the food pyramid suggests you should be eating. This will offer a better idea of what you need to add to your diet (probably fruits, vegetables and whole grains) and what you could cut back on (fat, meat, salt, for example).

Here are some more tips to get you eating better in a hurry:

• Swap soda for water. Water is calorie-free and makes you feel full, which is important if you're trying to lose weight. Water is also vital if you're exercising more than you used to. Don't think that just switching to diet soda is good enough; getting rid of all carbonated beverages is better for you.
• Get whole grains at breakfast. Try oatmeal, toast on whole-grain bread, a whole-wheat English muffin, even leftover brown rice in an omelet. Starting your day with whole grains makes you feel full longer, and we all can use more fiber.
• Use fruit for snacks. Most people don't get anywhere near the recommended number of servings of fruit daily. Get closer by packing whole fruit, natural applesauce or single servings of mixed fruit in light syrup for snacks throughout the day.
• Eat more often. Conventional diet wisdom lately is that eating more often during the day prevents blood sugar spikes and makes you feel full, even if you're consuming fewer calories. Go for five or six eating sessions a day rather than the usual three.
• Plan ahead. Take time on the weekend to plan your menu—breakfasts, lunches and dinners—and do as much of your shopping and prep work in advance as you can. Being prepared makes it easy to stick to your healthy diet plan.
• Try more beans. Americans eat almost 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish a year, way more than anyone else in the world. Cut your meat intake (and therefore your fat intake) by using beans instead of meat at least one meal a week. Beans are rich in fiber and can help lower cholesterol.
• Look for ways to add veggies. It's easy to add vegetables to salads, pasta sauces and rice dishes in addition to just eating them as sides. Each meal, think about ways to add a vegetable, and if you can, do it.

Eating healthy becomes second nature after a while. Once you've lived with your healthy eating plan for a few weeks you won't even miss the unhealthy junk you were eating before.