Nutrition can be one of the most challenging aspects of our health to master. There is so much emotion attached to food that it can be difficult to objectively look at what we eat and determine whether or not it is helping us reach our goals, nevermind make changes when necessary. 

If you struggle with knowing what to eat or sticking to a nutrition plan, you’re not alone. Let’s dive into a couple of simple tips that will help, no matter what approach to your nutrition you take. 

When it comes to improving our food choices to help us reach our health goals, we’re often faced with the option to cut out entire food groups. There are many diets that encourage getting rid of food groups, such as how a ketogenic diet requires eating next to no carbohydrates per day. 

Others say sugar is what needs to be avoided at all costs, while not that long ago we believed fats were the cause of all of our problems. 

While simply avoiding food groups altogether can make our decision making process easier, unless you have an allergy or an intolerance, this approach actually makes it much more difficult for us to make changes to our nutrition that last. Fully restricting foods usually leads to overeating those foods later, whether it’s when they are “allowed” again, or in moments when our will power is at its weakest. 

Instead of looking at what we can remove from our diet, one of the best ways to improve our nutrition is to look for what we can add in. One of the most important changes we can make that will have a huge impact on how we feel is prioritizing whole foods. 

Whole foods are foods that come from plants and animals and are not processed, or are minimally processed. Take a look at your current meals. How many food items are whole foods and how many are processed? Swapping out even just one processed food per meal with a whole food is a great place to start. 

Once whole foods make up the majority of the food you’re eating, you can look at the balance of foods on your plate. Each food is made up of a different combination of macronutrients - fat, carbohydrates, and protein. Balancing the macronutrients on our plate with a source of protein, complex carbohydrates, fat, and vegetables is a great way to leave you feeling satisfied and energized after each meal. 

Having a source of each macronutrient at every meal will help balance blood sugar, which minimizes the crashes that can happen after eating if our meals are unbalanced.

Our relationship with food is one that we get to nurture for the entirety of our lives. There’s no rush to have it all figured out right away. How we eat in the future will likely look different from how we eat today, and that’s perfectly normal. Take it one step at a time, find something that feels exciting to you, and adopt it to fit your life and your goals. 

There’s never going to be a perfect plan that will solve all of your problems for the rest of your life. Your way of eating will change with you as you change and grow. Embrace it.