While following a healthy lifestyle has always been important, there has been a real push towards wellness in recent years. For example, a recent study found that
7 in 10 adults are motivated to get healthier in the coming months, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thankfully, there are various ways in which you can become a little healthier in your daily life. For example, regular exercise is an effective way to take care of yourself (both mind and body). However, you should also ensure that you follow a healthy diet. After all, following a healthy diet ensures your body receives all of the vitamins and nutrients it needs to thrive. It can also lower your risk for a range of health conditions, such as heart disease, strokes and diabetes.
Yet, for one reason or another, a misconception exists that healthy eating is dull or boring – when this isn’t the case. There are plenty of ways in which you can enjoy a delicious, varied diet while remaining as healthy as possible.
With that in mind, here are some simple ways in which you can make healthy eating fun for the whole family!
Use apps to find recipes, and understand nutrition.
There are plenty of mobile apps designed to help you eat well that you can use to your advantage when switching up your diet. For example, Change4Life Smart Recipes is completely free to download and features plenty of delicious, healthy meals that you can cook up on a budget. As a result, it can be a great way to expand your palette and realise that healthy foods are not always ‘boring’.
You could also use apps such as MyFitnessPal to log your meals and snacks. This will help you to track your calorie consumption, therefore allowing you to understand more about nutrition and the food you are putting into your body. You can also use this app to set fitness goals and celebrate whenever you achieve them.
Try new cuisines.
Healthy eating does not mean eating a salad every day. In fact, you need to ensure that your diet is as varied as possible. One way in which you can achieve this goal is by stepping out of your comfort zones and trying new cuisines. For example, as many dieticians believe that the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest, you could try to introduce some Mediterranean dishes to your kitchen.
Take a cooking class.
One of the biggest reasons why people believe healthy eating is boring is because they aren’t all that practised in the kitchen, meaning they don’t know about the small changes they can make to dishes to make them tastier. For example, participating in culinary class will help you learn all about the art of seasoning, which can add a little flavour to any dish you create.
Furthemore, there are plenty of family-friendly cooking classes out there (or even tutorials you can follow on you-tube), which means that cooking could become a
hobby you can take up as a family. This means that you can spend more quality time together, while also making healthy changes to improve your life.
Grow your own fruit & vegetables.
Learning to grow your own vegetables is another great way to make healthy eating more exciting. There are various reasons for this. Firstly, it can cut down on your monthly grocery bills as you no longer have to source all of your materials from supermarkets and instead only need to step into your garden. This also means that you gain access to fresh fruit and vegetables, which means you can get as much nutritional value from them as possible.
Growing your own fruits and veg also makes healthy eating more fun as it fills you with a sense of satisfaction knowing that you’ve grown some of the ingredients yourself! Again, this could be a great way to spend time together as a family as you learn how to care for different plants. If you’re not much of a green thumb, start with low-maintenance fruit and veg, such as tomatoes.
Try to understand what your body needs.
Following a healthy diet means picking up on small, good habits that can transform your health. For example, this could include cutting down on unnecessary snacking by learning to understand what your body actually wants or needs. For instance, if you crave sugary snacks such as chocolate or sweets, “this could mean that your body is lacking a vitamin or nutrient, or that your blood sugar levels are off.” As a result, you could ensure you incorporate plenty of protein in the rest of your meals and snacks, as this can increase your blood sugar without you having to work your way through chocolate bar after chocolate bar (though the occasional cheat is fine).
The more you understand the body, the easier it will be to nourish it. This also gives you the chance to find healthy alternatives to your favourite unhealthy snacks. For example, you could satisfy a craving for crisps by learning how to make your own baked vegetable crisps. Not only will they taste delicious, but they’ll be less heavy on salt than commercially packaged products, and will be free from other additives.
Give yourself a treat.
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the idea of following a ‘healthy diet’ is that it’s the kind of diet where you must restrict yourself. This is often not the case, as you can still enjoy your favourite treats and snacks, so long as you do so in moderation. For example, you could choose a certain day each week as your ‘cheat day’, where you’re able to indulge a little more. This could help those who are trying to lose weight, as “research shows that after a cheat meal, the body increases its metabolism, causing you to burn calories faster.”
Furthemore, it’s important that you do not fall into the mindset of categorising food into “good” and “bad”. Food is fuel – and so long as enjoyed in moderation, all food is good.