Do your 2023 resolutions include a goal to optimize your diet for long-term health? Or a commitment to drinking more water, and eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains? What about including plant-based meals on a weekly rotation?
Don’t set yourself up for failure by attempting an overnight revamp of your habits. Instead, review these 23 healthy living tips from registered dietician Leslie Beck and incorporate some tips each week. At the end of January, take a moment to review your progress and pick one you feel requires more attention to master in the next month.
One of the biggest assets in making dietary change is a food diary. It can provide a huge amount of self-awareness and pinpoint areas for improvement. And if your goals include weight loss, research suggests that faithfully keeping a food diary will enhance your success.
Record your food intake – and portion size – after each meal. Don’t wait until the end of the day or you’ll likely forget a few foods.
Assess your food diary at the end of each day. What do you notice? No fruit? Not enough vegetables? Too many sweets? Portion sizes larger than you thought?
Use this information to help focus your efforts over the next few weeks.
Women need nine cups of water each day and men need 13 cups – more if they exercise. All beverages – even coffee! – count to your daily recommended intake.
Drinking water before each meal helps you feel full and, as a result, may prevent you from overeating. Also, many people don’t drink enough water in the winter months because they don’t feel thirsty. So this easy trick will also help you meet your daily water requirements.
Women need nine cups (2.2 litres) of water each day and men need 13 cups (three litres) – more if they exercise.
Here’s the good news: All beverages – with the exception of alcoholic drinks – count toward your daily water requirements. Yes, even coffee and tea.
It’s estimated that Canadians get only half the fibre they need each day. Women, aged 19 to 50, need 25 grams a day; men should strive for 38 grams. (Older women and men need 21 and 30 grams of fibre a day, respectively.)
To help you meet that target, start by increasing your fibre intake at breakfast. Try one of the following:
Emphasize polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats in your daily diet, the types of fat linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. When replaced for saturated (animal) fats, these healthy fats help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol in the bloodstream and may also improve how the body uses insulin.
Good sources of polyunsaturated fats include grapeseed oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, walnuts, chia seeds, ground flax, hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds. Foods that contain mostly monounsaturated fats are olive oil, avocado and avocado oil, peanuts, peanut oil, almonds, cashews, pecans and pistachios.
The following tips can help shift the balance of fats in your diet:
With climate change firmly on the radar, sustainability underscores food trends for the year ahead. Reducing food waste is something we can all do to help reduce our carbon footprint. Food waste that ends up in landfills produces methane gas, a powerful greenhouse gas that affects climate change.
Practice the following tips to reduce food waste:
If weight loss is among your 2023 goals, this resolution is well worth making. Studies show that people who eat quickly – and eat until they’re full – are three times more likely to be overweight.
Eating slowly allows appetite-related hormones to kick in and tell your brain you’ve had enough to eat. Since it takes 20 minutes for these signals to register, if you eat too fast you will be more likely to overeat before your body is aware of it.
At breakfast, lunch and dinner: After every bite, put down your knife and fork and chew thoroughly. Don’t pick up that knife and fork until your mouth is 100-per-cent empty. Take sips of water between bites.
Include a variety of vegetables in at least two meals each day.
To increase your vegetable intake, be sure to include them in at least two meals each day.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that eating plenty of produce is good for us, most Canadians eat too little of it. Canada’s Food Guide advises making half of your plate vegetables and fruits.
Work toward this target by adding more vegetables to your diet. Try these tips:
This smart strategy that can help you achieve your 2023 weight-loss goal. It really works. In fact, one of my clients did this for six weeks and lost 10 pounds.
Serve your evening meal on a luncheon-sized plate (seven to nine inches in diameter), rather than a full-sized dinner plate.
You’ll put less food on the plate – which means fewer calories – but the plate will look full. You’ll find your appetite adjusts quickly to eating less food.
To get more fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants into your diet, eat at least two servings of fruit each day.
To help you meet your daily target, snack on fruit (whole fruit, not juice) midmorning and afternoon.
Drinking 3 to 5 cups of green tea a day has been linked with protection from heart disease and high blood pressure.
Drinking three to five cups of green tea a day has been linked with protection from heart disease and high blood pressure. Studies also suggest that drinking green tea regularly can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol in the bloodstream. Green tea leaves are an incredibly rich source of phytochemicals called catechins, which have potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
Here are a few ways to add green tea antioxidants to your diet:
Leafy greens are high in fibre and a good source of cancer-fighting vitamins A and C, vitamin K, folate (a B vitamin), iron, calcium and potassium. What’s more, they’re an exceptional source of lutein and zeaxanthin, phytochemicals thought to protect against cataract and macular degeneration. Also, research suggests that eating lutein-rich leafy greens on a regular basis slows age-related cognitive decline and lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Include a leafy green vegetable in your daily diet. Choose from arugula, beet greens, collard greens, dandelion greens, kale, mustard greens, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, rapini (broccoli raab), spinach, Swiss chard and turnip greens.
Here are a few serving suggestions:
The key to successful long-term healthy eating is planning ahead to make sure you’re fuelling your body with nutritious foods. Plus, knowing what you’re going to eat for dinner takes the stress out of having to figure it out at the end of a hectic day.
Try mapping out next week’s dinners. I encourage you to plan breakfasts, lunches and snacks too, if appropriate. As you plan, think about how you can cook once and make two or more meals out of it. Batch cook soups, casseroles, pasta sauce or chili on the weekend and freeze to serve on a busy weeknight. Cook a batch of whole grains such as brown rice, farro or barley in your Instant Pot. Grill or roast an extra portion of salmon or chicken at dinner for a simple, no-prep lunch the next day.
Herbs and spices contain potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals called polyphenols that may boost brainpower and guard against cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
Adding herbs and spices to meals is an effective and tasty way to de-salt your meals. But the benefits of cooking herbs and spices goes beyond reducing your sodium intake. Herbs and spices contain potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals called polyphenols that may boost brainpower and guard against cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
Try these tips to add herbs and spices to your meals (to convert fresh-to-dried herbs use 1 teaspoon dried for every tablespoon fresh):
There’s no doubt that eating a plant-based diet helps guard against a myriad of health problems, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and certain cancers.
Foods such as beans, lentils, nuts, tofu, edamame and tempeh are loaded with plant protein, as well as vitamins, minerals and many different phytochemicals. Plus, they’re incredibly low in saturated fat and many are excellent sources of fibre.
Replace meat, poultry or fish with a plant-based protein at three meals each week. Here are a few ideas:
Tiny flaxseeds offer soluble fibre, omega-3 fatty acids called alpha linolenic acid (ALA) and phytochemicals called lignans. Research suggests that a regular intake of ground flax can help lower LDL blood cholesterol and blood pressure, and possibly guard against breast and prostate cancers.
Two tablespoons of ground flax deliver 60 calories, four grams of fibre and more than a day’s worth of ALA. (You need to eat flaxseeds ground because when whole, they pass through your intestinal tract undigested, meaning you won’t reap all their benefits.)
Add ground flax to hot cereal, overnight oats, smoothies, yogurt, applesauce, muffin and pancake batters, or mix into lean ground beef or turkey when making burgers or meatloaf. Stir it into egg whites to make a “breading” for fish or chicken. You can also try adding a little ground flax to mustard or mayonnaise for a healthier sandwich spread.
Carrots, sweet potato and winter squash are loaded with beta carotene, an antioxidant linked to a lower risk of heart disease and certain cancers.
Carrots, sweet potato and winter squash are loaded with beta carotene, an antioxidant linked to a lower risk of heart disease and certain cancers. Some of the beta carotene you eat is also converted to vitamin A in the body, a nutrient that supports a healthy immune system.
There’s no official recommended intake for beta carotene, but experts maintain that a daily intake of 3 to 6 milligrams is needed to help prevent chronic diseases. Guess what? A medium sweet potato packs 13 milligrams of beta carotene, half a cup of carrot juice has 11 mg, half a cup of cooked carrots has 6.5 mg (half a cup of raw carrots has 5 mg) and half a cup of butternut squash has 4.5 mg. So it’s not hard to get your fill.
Try one of these suggestions:
Consuming too much sugar – especially from sweetened beverages – is linked with a greater risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity. The goal is simple: Replace all sugary drinks with water, clear tea, black coffee, herbal tea, unsweetened milk or unsweetened non-dairy milk.
While 100-per-cent fruit juice does not have added sugar, it’s still a concentrated source of natural sugar (and calories) that lacks fibre. For this reason, it’s considered a sugary drink. Replace fruit juice with a serving of whole fruit. And if you regularly drink fruit juice to quench your thirst, replace it with water.
It’s estimated that adults gain, on average, one to two pounds a year. For some people, this gradual creep could lead to obesity. The good news: You don’t have to make major changes to your diet to prevent incremental weight gain.
Instead, studies show that adopting a “small change approach” – cutting 100 to 200 calories a day by eating less, exercising more, or a combination of the two – can do the trick. Making small tweaks to diet and exercise are easier to integrate into your everyday life and easier to maintain long-term than are bigger lifestyle changes required to lose weight.
Here are a few small easy changes to implement:
If you arrive home from work hungry and ready to eat everything in sight, this tip will help prevent overeating at the end of the day. But that’s not all.
Eating every three to four hours also helps keep your blood glucose (energy) level stable and fuels late-afternoon workouts. Healthy snacks also provide an opportunity to boost your intake of important nutrients such as protein, fibre and calcium.
Snacks should include slow-burning carbohydrates to fuel your muscles and your brain, along with protein and a little healthy fat to keep you feeling energized longer.
Healthy snack ideas include:
If you like the convenience of energy bars, choose bars made with whole food ingredients such as fruit and nuts.
If the lag time between breakfast and lunch is long, include a midmorning snack too.
If you’re watching your waistline, it’s a wise idea to set a cut-off time for eating dinner. (Unless, of course, you work a night shift.)
Ideally, avoid eating a large meal after 7 p.m. and eat it earlier if you can. If you’ve had an unusually long day and there’s no avoiding eating after that time, keep it light – a bowl of bean soup, salad with lean protein or an omelette with vegetables.
While there’s no scientific evidence that eating after a certain time of the night can make you gain weight, eating late in the day has been tied to increased obesity risk and less successful weight loss, outcomes that couldn’t be explained by differences in calorie intake. Research has also shown that, compared to people who ate dinner early, late-eaters were hungrier during the day and burned fewer calories.
But there are other reasons to avoid eating late. My clients who stick to the rule tell me they sleep better, wake up with an appetite for breakfast and feel less bloated in the morning.
Research suggests that you need to eat at least three servings of whole grains each day to reap their health benefits
Eating foods made from whole grains is linked with protection from heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer. Whole grains contain all parts of the grain: the outer bran layer where nearly all the fibre is, the inner germ layer that’s rich in nutrients, antioxidants and healthy fats, and the starchy endosperm.
Research suggests that you need to eat at least three servings of whole grains each day to reap their health benefits. One serving equals: one slice of 100-per-cent whole-grain bread, 30 grams of breakfast cereal, ½ cup cooked whole-wheat pasta or ½ cup cooked whole grains such as oats, brown rice, farro, quinoa and millet.
Ideally, most – if not all – of your grain choices should be whole grain.
Try to replace all “white,” refined grains with a whole grain. The following tips can help you do so:
Use this quick and easy technique to help manage portion sizes and fill half your plate with vegetables at dinner (or lunch).
Here’s how it works: Visualize your dinner plate in quarters, and fill those quarters as follows:
It’s also a great strategy for when you’re eating buffet-style: It helps make sure your eyes aren’t bigger than your stomach – and prevents you from needing to loosen your belt after the meal.
The last day of January is a perfect time to reflect on the nutrition strategies you’ve embarked upon during the past few weeks.
Changing your eating habits takes practice. It’s easy for things to slip, especially when you’re given a nutrition tip to implement each day. That’s a lot to ask of anybody … so give yourself a pat on the back!
Consider the nutrition tips you’ve worked on this month. Choose one you feel requires more focus and attention in order for you to really master it.
Leslie Beck: The healthy food trends – for you and the planet – to watch for in 2023
Follow Leslie Beck on Twitter: @lesliebeckrdOpens in a new window
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