Nowadays everyone has a busy routine, full of chores, meetings, responsibilities, family issues and it’s a reality in many people’s lives. Within this busy context, having a healthy and balanced diet becomes a great challenge.
If you are the type of person who misses mealtimes and lives by replacing them with quick snacks, be aware that your health and performance at work may be negatively influenced by these bad eating habits. Our body is like a machine, and we need to give it the right fuel so it can work the right way.
So today, you will get to know 7 tips that will improve your diet, maintain your health and fitness, and increase your energy and disposition! Check it out!
1 CONSCIOUS WAY SHOPPING
Shopping is hard work, especially if you live alone. It should be a conscious task, focused on your good nutrition, so the first tip on this task is never do this hungry. If you are hungry you will absolutely buy more than you need and add junk food, full of sodium and preservatives. It’s very important to learn about reading labels, but this is worth another article.
Avoid buying processed and industrialized foods, such as noodles, nuggets and frozen lasagna, for example. Although they are tasty and easy to make, they are full of preservatives and harmful fats. If you keep only healthy foods in your refrigerator and pantry, it will be much easier to maintain a balanced diet.
2 PLAN YOUR FOOD ROUTINE
Many people feed themselves badly simply by not planning their routine. If you stay away from home long hours, whether at university or at work, at some point in the day you need to feed yourself, right? So, how about planning well in advance what will be ingested in your meals? So you avoid resorting to the first fast-food restaurant you find along the way just for lack of better options.
Make a spreadsheet with your activity schedule for the week, see how many meals you need to do each day. By doing this, you can predict where and when you need to feed yourself. With this information in hand, it becomes simple to plan strategies for eating better. Planning is the first step for you to achieve a healthier diet.
3 DON’T SKIP MEALS
When talking about changing eating habits, one of the big mistakes is skipping meals, going too long without food, or replacing for snacks. If you go a long time without eating, the next meal you make will eat more than you actually need, and you may be too hungry to say no to certain foods that, while delicious, are not ideal for your health.
Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day, as troubled as your routine is, get used to not leave the house without it. Eating healthy food after waking up ‘awakens’ your body, as it activates your metabolism, and gives you the energy to cope with the rush day.
4 LUNCHTIME
If you work all day and have lunch in restaurants, always give preference to restaurants that are known to have several healthy options. Generally, they offer a greater amount of dishes and salads, which allows you to make more conscious choices.
When assembling your dish, always remember to choose foods from all food groups: carbohydrates (brown rice / brown pasta/tubers), which gives energy; proteins (meats/beans/eggs), which build and regenerate tissues; and vegetables and salads, fibre sources, vitamins and minerals. The general rule is that the more colourful your dish, the greater the diversity of nutrients it will contain, which contributes to the correct functioning of your metabolism.
If the company you work for has a specific place where employees can have their meals, bet without fear of the good old lunch box. In addition to saving money at the end of the month, bringing homemade food helps you eat healthier and incorrect amounts. If you have a very rush routine and don’t have time to cook and prepare your lunch box every night, try cooking over the weekend and leave small frozen portions, enough for the whole week. Washing and cutting vegetables and salads as soon as you arrive from the supermarket, packing them in pots with lids in the refrigerator, also makes it quicker to set up your meal.
5 HYDRATE YOURSELF
Having a healthy diet also means being careful about hydration. During the day, our body loses water, which needs to be replenished correctly. A dehydrated body slows down our metabolism and less energy, which can affect your performance at work and college.
So get used to having a bottle of water always around to keep yourself hydrated all day long. If you do not like pure water, you can flavour it by adding herbs like fennel, mint or lemon, or invest in light-coloured teas, such as green tea, which, in addition to moisturizing, still have antioxidants and prevent diseases.
6 SLEEP WELL
Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal gland, it is responsible for helping the body to adapt to physical and emotional stress. It is essential for the normal functioning of organs and systems, controls the sleep cycle and blood pressure, among other functions.
Throughout the life, the production of this hormone can be compromised, either by some illness, by an emotional crisis, by continuous stress or by an incorrect feeding. When in excess or too low, cortisol can negatively influence people’s daily routine and quality of life resulting in difficulty sleeping, chronic fatigue, irritability, allergies, cravings for certain foods, and increased dependence on caffeine.
There are several strategies for maintaining adequate cortisol levels, such as improving sleep quality, avoiding prolonged fasting, avoiding caffeinated and alcoholic beverages, and conducting wellness activities.
7 TRY NEW RECIPES
When someone starts changing their eating habits, it is exciting at the start but over the time the excitement dies out and they realize that the lack of new dishes can lead to falling back into old ways, causing the person to leave aside the healthier choices and the famous fast foods end up winning again. This is very worrying because these foods are low in nutrients, rich in calories, sodium and trans fats.
So I suggest researching new recipes, nowadays there are websites, books and videos that provide several types of healthy recipes. These recipes generally use only fresh, natural, preservative-free ingredients that don’t harm your health. They are rich in fibre, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that will nourish and get you healthier.
To demystify the concept that healthy food is synonymous with too much working in the kitchen, soon I will share some recipes with you.





