Tips for healthy eating
Choosing the healthier foods is easier than you might think. By changing just a few eating habits you can make the big difference to your diet. Tips for healthy eating.
Making small changes to your diet is the healthiest and most attainable way to lose the weight.
Your first step is to eat fewer foods high in calories, fat, salt and sugars and exchange them for something healthier, including more fruit and vegetables.
Remember, small changes can add up to make the big overall difference to your diet.
Find out more in eatwell plate about which foods you should be eating and in what amounts – to accomplish a balanced diet.
Food and drink swaps
Try these small changes when you have the next meal or drink, or when you open kitchen cupboard or fridge looking for the snack. Once you have got started, try thinking of the own healthier exchanges, too.
When buying pre-packed food, do not rely on attractive promotional print on wrapping, which can be misleading. Instead, learn to read nutritional information when checking for calorie, fat, salt and sugar content.
Breakfast
- Change from whole milk to semi-skimmed, 1% fat or even skimmed milk.
- Change the sugar-coated breakfast cereal for the whole grain breakfast cereal such as porridge or shredded whole grain wheat cereal with no added sugar.
- Change the sprinkle of sugar on your breakfast cereal for a topping of the fresh or dried fruit, which counts towards one of your 5 a day.
- Change full-fat Greek yoghurt for the lower-fat or fat-free Greek yoghurt, or natural low-fat yoghurt.
Lunch
- Change the white breads, bagels and muffins for whole grain varieties.
- Change butter and cheese in the jacket potato for reduced fat spread and reduced salt and sugar baked beans.
- Change the tuna melt panini for a tuna salad sandwich on wholemeal bread without mayo.
- Change a cheddar cheese filling in your sandwich for reduced-fat hard cheese.
Dinner
- Change creamy or cheesy sauces for the tomato- or vegetable-based sauces on the pasta, meat or fish dishes.
- Change the mashed potato made with the butter and whole milk for mash with low-fat spread and a lower-fat milk such as semi-skimmed, 1% fat or skimmed.
- Choose leaner cuts of meat: for example, swap streaky bacon for back bacon.
- Change the frying pan for the grill when cooking meat.
Drinks
Change a coffee made with whole milk to a “skinny” coffee made with semi-skimmed or skimmed milk.- Change a cordial for a cordial with no added sugars.
- Change a few of your sugary drinks for a glass of water.
- Change a cola or fizzy drink with some 100% fruit juice (with no added sugar) mixed with soda water.
- Change hot chocolate made with whole milk and served with whipped cream for a hot chocolate made with skimmed milk and no cream.
Snacks
- Choose from these 10 surprising 100kcal snacks
- Change a blueberry muffin for a currant bun on its own or with some reduced fat spread.
- Change yoghurt-coated raisins for plain raisins.
- Change salted nuts for unsalted nuts.
- Change cheese straws for rice cakes with lower-fat cream cheese.
Photo credit: Trace Nietert / Source / CC BY
The above are the Tips for Healthy Eating. Yabibo – Your Health is in your Hands.