I hear it all of the time.  “I want to eat healthier, but I just don’t know where to start.”  That was me just 2 years ago.  I really had NO IDEA where to start.  I knew that eating fast food 3 times a day was not a good thing, but what should I be doing instead?

I don’t necessarily consider myself a real food expert, but I have done plenty of research along the way.  More than anything else, I have experience.  I know what it is like to take my family from eating fast food 3 times a day to eating a mostly real food lifestyle.  I also know just how hard it is to get started.

Here are 5 things you can do today to start eating healthier.

1.  Write down what you eat for a week.  I’ve got to tell you……writing down your food (all of it) for just a day is eye-opening.  Seeing my food in writing really helped me to see where I had the most work to do.  Was I eating enough fruits and vegetables? Was I eating too much sugar?  I then had real information to start making changes.

2.  Start adding more fruits and vegetables to each meal.  This is key!

Fruits and vegetables were the farthest thing from my mind when planning

meals in the past.  They were always afterthoughts.  When I started filling my plate with a variety of fruits and vegetables (both raw and cooked) I realized that meat and potatoes were less important to me.  I also felt fuller for longer.  This was a total change in the way I was eating.

3.  Eat butter and other healthy fats like coconut oil and olive oil and stay away from margarine, trans fat, canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, etc.  Wow!  Was this eye opening for me.  I was raised believing that butter tasted better than margarine, but margarine was better for you.  Not true!  Our bodies actually need fat to function properly, but “healthy fats” are preferred.  Our brains need fat and fat helps us to absorb certain nutrients.  Fat-free is NOT the way to go.  Anytime you see “Fat-free” on a package………run.  That likely means that they have loaded it with sugar.  Yuck!

4.  Cut out all of the drinks.  Most drinks on the market are full of sugar and other questionable ingredients.  It’s not easy, but if I can kick a Diet Coke habit for good, then so can you.  Water, milk on occasion, coffee, and tea are what I drink on a regular basis.  The more water you drink, the better you will feel.

5.  Find new healthy snacks.  I can’t help it.  I like to eat.  I also get pretty grouchy if I don’t maintain an even blood sugar level all day.  Snacks are important so early on, I decided to eat more rather than less.  Ditch the 100 calorie packs and start crunching on chopped veggies.  I love them dipped in lemon and garlic hummus.  We also love to munch on DIY Microwave popcorn. 

6.  Cook at home.   My husband came up with this one when we first started our real food journey.  I was fretting about not having enough healthy real food recipes and the ingredients in my pantry to make them.  He told me that no matter what I cooked, it would be better than eating out.  While I was learning about which ingredients were the best to use, I just started cooking.  We used plenty of canned soups in casseroles and lots of processed food ingredients.  I gave myself permission to make mistakes while I was just getting back into the habit of cooking at home.  The meals were not perfect, but without a doubt they were better than what we were eating prior to this time.  For Pete’s sake……at least there was a vegetable on the table! That was different than the local fast food establishment liked to serve us.

Real Food is simple and switching your eating habits to eating more whole foods and less processed food ingredients can be easy to.  One meal at a time choose one more delicious real food and one less processed food ingredient.  In no time you will be enjoying the health benefits of eating a real food diet.

What motivates you to eat real food?  What are some of your favorite real food snacks?  What advice would you give someone just starting their real food journey?

I promise to keep bringing you the best and most accurate information on nutrition I can find……….and hopefully with a little bit of humor along the way as well. You can find lots of great information on this blog (check out the tabs above and the archives). Make sure to subscribe by email so you don’t miss anything. You can also find lots of great tips, tricks, advice, and fun on my Facebook page and my other social media. Please join us!