Your Guide To Having A Healthier Diet

Nothing ensures better health than a healthier stomach and a healthy heart. Taking note of everything that goes in your daily diet, and trying to substitute even in small quantities with better options, can make a huge difference. Planning a diet chart can seem like a big task, but don’t worry, we’ve done some homework for you! We do suggest you to look up more options that better serve your individual needs. But here’s our list of tips and tricks to a healthier diet (and subsequently, life!)

Honey Lemon Water

Lemon with honey in water improves digestion and immunity, provides you with antioxidants to keep your skin refreshed and acne at bay, helps maintain electrolyte balance and ensures your heart and kidneys function well. We recommend lukewarm to slightly heated water added to this early morning drink. It will help you flush out toxins and even help with your ENT issues. Additionally, when we speak about the benefits of honey, we refer to raw honey. So get that processed honey off your shelf and look for some organic honey!

Assorted Fruits

We all know fruits are good for our body, but some of us like certain things more and never balance our intake. While others consume their favorites to the point where more consumption induces distasteful feelings. From berries to melon to nuts and pomes, select a few each time you go grocery shopping. Try alternating between ones you get because each category and each fruit can have benefits. Also, try to prioritize seasonal fruits. Now whether you like it as an assortment before breakfast, as an alternative for lunch or as a light snack anytime during the day, just remember to make a mix bowl. Fruits at breakfast are perhaps the best option. But if you have a habit of snacking at odd times, you might want to replace the added sugars with some natural ones. Fruits are also a great source of fiber and while you might love your juices, the juice doesn’t retain the fiber and so, doesn’t keep you full for as long.

Organic Half-in-Half

If you can manage to go fully organic, kudos to you. But if you think it’s a struggle, try to convert slowly! Whether its replacing half of your sugar intake with raw brown sugar aka gurh or adding half a portion of four grain wheat to your dough for the daily rotis/chappatis, try gradually merging organic products into your diet. Anything that is less processed, is better for you. The half-in-half ratio can help you gradually adapt your taste-buds to different types of ingredients. Have all the white bread you like, but alternate it with some barley or oatmeal breakfast too, and instead of adding sugar to that, try some honey. Everything can be done at your own pace!

Slice of Spice

Cinnamon, ginger, fennel seeds, cloves, flax seeds, black pepper, fenugreek seeds, cardamom and even turmeric; all are great things to add to your diet and will do wonders for digestion and boosting your immunity. Take anything you like and alternate it with others to keep trying out new things. Add something to your tea, brew one or two in hot water or qawah and if you like for something like turmeric, even add it in milk. Add whatever works for you and your taste buds at your own pace. Some of these taste great with plain yogurt, so go make your own raitas and add some things beyond the typical ingredients. A small bowl of yogurt can not only be a source of calcium, but can positively impact health.

Swap Some Oils

Pick up oils you know you need and that suit your body’s needs. Look up options between which ones can work better for which recipes. Sometimes your cooking recipe may require you to pick sunflower or canola, but adding a dash of olive or avocado to the meal will at least allow you to consume the healthier counterparts as replacements in small amounts.

Meal Prep Hours

Nothing unconventional or out of the box, but definitely highly neglected. These ones are usually the biggest and toughest sacrifice to make. But here’s a tried and trusted method from college students that feed on more than just ramen, set aside an hour at least from your day. Designate this to be your cooking time. No matter how simple or complicated, exceptionally healthy or a cheat meal, make it from scratch. This will allow you to monitor every ingredient that goes in your recipe instead of the help kits and half-cooked ingredients that speed up the process. Rather than treating food like a thing to beat your hunger, start investing in it’s prep like an inescapable chore. You will see the difference! So even if it’s just your salad dressing, instead of consuming a processed mix with your fresh greens, quickly whip up your own! This will also allow you to not completely cut down on consumption of any food category, just monitor and control how much goes into how many meals.