10 Steps to Choosing the Right Food for Diet

Have you ever met a dietary zealot? Zealots exhort others to follow their diet plan with a ferocity that would impress even the most fervent traveling preacher.However, success follows when diet plans fit your lifestyle.For example, if your family lives for meat and potatoes, embracing a vegan diet may be difficult.

Here’s how to choose the right foods for you. Create a custom eating strategy that suits your personal tastes and lifestyle, and you will find that you have created an eating plan that you can stick with forever.

1. Establish your dietary goals

Some people want to lose fat, and others need to lower their blood pressure. Some even wish to gain weight or build muscle. Choose foods that address your needs.

2. Know which foods are beneficial

In an effort to reduce total calories consumed, many people avoid fats. However, we all need lean protein, complex carbohydrates and fat to thrive.You may need to make room for essential fatty acids in your diet.Try flax seeds, hemp seeds, nuts and fish.

3. Understand why “bad” foods are unhealthy

We know which foods to avoid. But maybe we don’t really understand why. For example, a teaspoon of sugar has only 15 calories. Why should we avoid that? And a few potato chips can’t hurt, right? Knowledge is power.When you do a little research, you boost your resolve. For example, when you understand how sugar affects the brain, it’s easier to pass it by.

4. Acknowledge your preferences

You will never be successful if you choose a plan that radically eliminates your preferences.Choose healthy foods you enjoy and avoid any that have negative emotional triggers.

5. Keep go-to foods handy

We all end up in situations that are not diet friendly. Or we go without food for too long and make those notoriously bad decisions based on low blood sugar. Therefore, keep some favorites handy.Nuts and seeds are small and easy to transport, and having a handful now may help you make better decisions later.

6. Choose the higher quality food

Food dilemmas can be stressful. At a business lunch, for example, choose the best available option.Do the best you can, and let the guilt go.

7. Include fiber

Fiber is a dieter’s best friend. Fiber helps you metabolize natural and added sugars while it fills you up.Fill up on fibers like fruits, beans, grains and vegetables.

8. Choose familiar foods

While expanding your palate is a positive thing, creating a grocery list of unfamiliar foods can be wasteful. Populate the majority of your diet with choices you enjoy.The path to success is lifestyle change, so choose foods that are part of your lifestyle.

9. Meet you nutritional needs

You know that you need to eat protein, carbohydrates and fat in proper proportions to achieve your goal.So choose foods that fit into your plan, and skip those that don’t.

10. Go for variety

Getting stuck in a rut leads to boredom. In addition, ruts limit the available nutrients.For example, if you eat primarily chicken, you may be missing out on essential fatty acids found in fish.

Tweet