How to Start Eating Healthier

Good article. Only thing is ...it is hard when your husband does'nt want to follow suit. So, I think I am going to have to cook two meals. He likes all kinds of bad food. - 4/23/2013 1:18:27 PM

It makes me happy to feel that I am on the right track. When I first started my lifestyle change this time around, I just ate the normal way I would for thte first week and just tracked everything I ate. This way I saw exactly how many calories I was eating. - 3/12/2013 2:33:09 PM

i grew up eating an all natural organic vegetarian diet (well started when i was 12 at least when my mom stopped working 80 hour weeks haha) so eating healthy has never been a big issue for me. but since i moved out with my boyfriend (who grew up on a meat and potatoes diet no veggies) i have realized eating healthy is just too expensive. i gained a lot of weight because i would get the unhealthy cheap stuff. and soda. i loved soda. but now ive realized that yes im eating within my calorie range but im not eating good calories. so i started changing small stuff. whole wheat pasta instead of white (50 cent difference when bought in bulk) whole wheat bread instead of white. cut out the soda and drink more green tea and flavored waters. drinking about 120 oz of water each day. i started carrying a water bottle with me everywhere one with the filter in it so i can fill it up anywhere and get fresh water. i do some sort of workout every day. im not losing weight even tho ive been at this for a long while now but i am losing inches which encourages me. im just assuming my body needs to build up muscles first before it kicks out the fat. - 1/13/2013 2:10:25 PM

great ideas, small changes add up to BIG changes! thanks - 1/13/2013 12:02:28 PM

Disagree with switching to skim milk. Most milk is fortified with Vitamin D, which is fat soluble. Stick with 2% instead. Fat is not evil, our bodies need it, and I'd rather eat naturally occurring fats than the "I can't believe people expect me to believe this is butter" type. People just need to learn to rethink their proportions and cut out the junk. Eat larger portions of veggies and whole grains, smaller portions of meats and fats, and skip the sugar entirely if you can. Refind sugar *is* evil. But so are artificial sweetners. Totally agree with the advice not to drink calories, that's right on the money. :) - 1/13/2013 11:08:48 AM

I would rather go for a different source of milk (soy or rice) then switching from whole to skimmed, as the last one is nothing but a processed food, a category you should stay away from. In fact, fat is not as bad as it seams to be from different articles, but a necessary component of a healthy life diet, so an advice is to look for natural sources of fat such as almonds, mixed nuts, coconuts, olives oil, fish, avocados etc . I also recommend eating fats first time in the morning and avoiding them before and after working out, but is only my oppinion. - 1/13/2013 10:53:31 AM

Great article! I do most of these things now and I love that Spark is encouraging small modifications rather than completely banning certain groups of food (carbs, fat, sugar. etc.)

Although I've learned that fat free things just don't satisfy me and I eat too much of them. So I prefer to go with smaller amounts (read, the actual portion size) of full fat or low fat products. I use 2% milk in my cereal and I snack on cheese sometimes. - 1/13/2013 9:17:19 AM

I think this is a very helpful, well written article. As always in the comments people will have their personal disagreements, but the point is that we have many options here. No one expects you to incorporate all of them. - 1/13/2013 6:11:09 AM

I have to agree - This is a great article, the moral of the story is spot on, small healthy modifications are a good way to make long term, realistic changes that will stick. However, I have to echo the concern over using processed foods - low fat/fat free dairy, margarine versus butter (just google margarine v. butter and ants - and you might never go back) - Not to mention getting enough healthy fats, to feel satisfied and digest your nutrients properly. Modification, balance, awareness! Thanks for the tips Spark! - 1/7/2013 12:57:44 PM

I have a thing about low and non-fat cheeses, in that they are pretty much flavourless when compared to their full-fat counterparts, in other words - how cheese should be made as opposed to even more processing to produce low fat versions.
And because you don't get the depth of flavour, you are more likely to use more than you would a full-fat cheese, and thus negating the "benefits" of the low-fat cheese in the first place.
It also makes me think of low-fat vegetable oil spreads in place of butter. The human body has evolved to process natural fats such as butter and cheese, whereas something like vegetable oil and olive oil based spreads are new to our bodies in terms of evolution, and hence we can not digest them and process them in the same way.
In addition, when you look at the list of ingredients on these spreads it's like reading a periodic table - all the additives that are needed in order to make oil spreadable and "palatable". At least with butter, all you have is what comes out of the cow with only some salt added if you have salted butter.
I'm a great believer in eating natural, clean products - afterall, the emulsifiers they use in low fat spreads are not too dissimilar to that which is found in emulsion paint that you put on your walls - certainly wouldn't fancy putting that in my body! - 1/7/2013 1:34:23 AM

Once again we have conflicting advice. Other articles state that skim milk is the wrong place to be cutting fat, since vitamin D is fat soluble and some milk fat is healthy.... - 1/6/2013 11:26:35 AM

I thought the above outline very sensible and helpful, and given that I have been yoyo-ing now since aged 13, I am beginning to be despondent (I did not bother to diet throughout my 50s - and stayed very large at about 105kg ongoing)... But when I turned 60 I tried to lose weight again, and it was invariably the yoyo style of weight loss and gain. As the eating regime you outline is not a diet per se, I shall give this a whirl... My main problem is PORTIONS OF FOOD - so will try very hard to concentrate on this. Many thanks!
- 1/6/2013 9:20:35 AM

This is a good article. I have found it to be very motavating! - 1/5/2013 9:04:50 PM

I think this is a great article. Thanks. - 1/1/2013 6:13:10 PM

One of the best things I ever did is switch to an alkaline diet, I feel great. The first step is cutting out all acidic foods, or gradually come off them. It may seem difficult at first, but after a few days, your body will stop craving crap food. You would not believe how much better you feel and look in just a couple of weeks. When your body has a healthy acid-alkaline balance, you feel at your best. It sounds really corny but I feel alive! If anybody wants an alkaline diet guide, the best one I know is at: www.TheAlkalineDi
etGuide.info - 11/15/2012 8:04:22 PM