Healthy Eating Habits

Whether you are recovering from an eating disorder or trying to prevent yourself from developing an unhealthy obsession with food, there are certain steps you can take to establish wholesome, healthy eating habits that will enhance your life while helping you maintain an appropriate weight and improving your overall well-being.

Don't Skip Meals

Eating regularly, and eating at least three times a day, is crucial to good health. People who eat high-quality foods every three to five hours generally maintain better health than those who skip meals, and they are less likely to overeat. To further guard against overeating, make sure all meals and snacks are balanced with protein, carbohydrate, and fatincluded.

Healthy eating habits begin with breakfast. Skipping breakfast is an all-too-common mistake, especially among those who are trying to lose weight. At breakfast time, your body has been without food, in a fasting state, for 6 to 10 hours. You need the energy and nutrients a balanced breakfast can provide. Skipping breakfast can cause the metabolism to slow (reducing the number of calories burned) and can interfere with the ability to concentrate.

Drink Water, Not Soda

The human body is roughly 70 percent water, and dehydration can cause serious health problems. Many people confuse dehydration-related fatigue with hunger, which leads them to both overeat and dehydrate -- a potentially deadly combination. Your body loses water even when you are not sweating or urinating: every time you exhale, you are losing a little bit of water. The average person needs at least 64 ounces of water per day, and overweight persons need additional water, as do extremely active people.

Soda, coffee, and tea all contain varying levels of caffeine -- a potent diuretic. For healthy eating habits, therefore, these beverages should be limited to prevent their contribution to dehydration or, worse, replacing the necessary water in the diet.

Eat Fruits and Vegetables Daily

Most people do not get even half of the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables each day, which means they are neglecting some of their bodies' most important needs by failing to provide adequate phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals. It's especially important not to "drink" all of your fruits in the form of juice. Fruit contains fibre, which is crucial to healthy digestion, and it is easy to consume too many calories because a serving of fruit juice is far smaller than most people think.

Eat Whole Grains Daily

Whole grains contain vital nutrients and trace elements necessary for the body's proper functioning. Eliminating grains from the diet, or eating only highly-processed grains, can lead to deficiencies. Grains also contain dietary fibre -- of which you need at least 25g per day.

Eat Healthy Fats

Too many people have misunderstood the low-fat idea, thinking the less fat they can consume, the better. This is true only to a point, and the quality and type of fat consumed is just as important as the quantity. Trans fats and saturated fats should certainly be avoided. But mono- and poly-unsaturated fats are important to the proper working of many body systems and absorption of essential vitamins, and serious health conditions can result from inadequate consumption of the healthful fats.

Shop with Healthy Eating Habits in Mind

Planning your meals ahead of time, and making sure to include a variety of healthful foods is an important step in attaining healthy eating habits. When you are at the grocery store, have a list and try to stick with it. Don't shop when you are hungry; you're more likely to impulse-buy food items not good for you. Shop the perimeter of the store -- that's where most of the unprocessed foods are placed. The dairy, produce, meat, and bakery counters are usually along the outer walls of the store, with the aisles containing more highly-processed (and less healthful) items in the center. Read labels and understand what you are buying before you put it in your cart -- especially watch portion sizes. More than one person has bought "snack-size" bags of chips, or bottled drinks, thinking they are single-serving packages when, in fact, they contain two or even three servings.

Strive for a Healthy Body Image

No one on earth looks like the models in the magazines -- not even the models! And those models who do look like their pictures are usually eating and living unhealthy, even obsessive, ways to maintain that look. If you are recovering from an eating disorder, seek professional counseling to help you overcome negative thoughts about your body image. An outsider can help you assess your need to look a certain way, and can show you how to adjust your image of yourself to a healthy, safe standard. Eating, exercise, and weight loss must all be approached with moderation and respect for the most healthy eating habits to develop and support a healthy you!

Related Diet Links

• Diet and Nutrition
• Diet and Fitness
• Eating a Healthy Diet: The Basics
• Information on Eating Disorders
• Eating Disorder Treatments