Find out in 5 easy steps if you really eat as healthy as you thought

Do you eat healthy?

Many people believe they eat healthy , but when you dig a little deeper and dig into the nutritional interview you begin to see that this is not the case. And the fault is not with the person himself, but with the great misinformation that there is regarding healthy eating. In consultation it happens to me every day, and the main problem is that we extract a characteristic of the healthy diet and with this we already think that we do it well, but without taking into account the total and the whole diet. Before discovering the 5 easy steps to eating healthy, let’s look at some examples of those wrong thoughts.

Situations in which it is believed to eat healthy

• “I eat healthy, because every day I eat 3 pieces of fruit a day”

Eating fruit does not imply that you eat healthy if the rest of your diet is based on ultra-processed products , pre-cooked food, sugary or alcoholic drinks or fast food.

Eating 3 pieces of fruit a day is great, but we should take a look (and perhaps more importantly) at what not to eat.

• “I eat healthy, because I don’t eat anything that contains sugar”

The fact that it is  without sugar does not mean that it does not contain sugar, as happens for example with juices. In addition, we cannot forget all the hidden sugar that we find in many products after more chemical and technical names such as glucose, sucrose, dextrose, molasses, honey … So not eating anything that contains sugar is not always an easy task. In the end, you eat sugar without even knowing it.

• “I eat healthy, because all the products I buy are light”

The light ones were invented with the fat boom, when all that dramatized concern arose that if you ate a lot of fat you would die of a heart attack, angina or any other cardiovascular accident (which is not true, it depends on the type and quality of the fats) .

And with this, “light” products became famous, again some products that are neither healthy nor included in a healthy diet , basically because a healthy food does not need a light version. In addition, we must bear in mind that to remove fat, they have to fill with something else, and that, normally, is sugar. So eating light is only going to make you believe that you eat healthy when you are not. You can read more about it in  light fattening products .

• “I eat healthy, because I eat a lot of vegetables” 

How much is a lot? This is something quite ambiguous and subjective. “I eat a lot of vegetables” and perhaps we are talking about some cherry tomatoes as a garnish in the meal and some lettuce leaves with the hamburger of the night. To affirm that you eat a lot of vegetables, you should eat at least 150 grams for lunch and dinner. And that would not guarantee a healthy diet either, if the rest of the foods were not also healthy. A bit like in the first case.

This, among others, was one of the reasons that led me to create the academy of courses , to teach people what it is to eat healthy and what is meant by healthy eating. Although that was the main objective, from now on the academy will not focus only on food but on healthy lifestyle habits.

Because I want to make it very clear that eating healthy is not only eating healthy food, eating healthy encompasses many other aspects such as the environment, time, schedules, food availability, emotions … Apart from eating healthy you have to be a part of your healthy life, because eating healthy is also of no use, if you are sedentary, smoke and drink alcohol daily.

5 simple steps to eat healthy

1. Eliminate unhealthy products.  Before worrying about what to eat, you should worry about what not to eat. Only with that you will already be giving a quality bonus to your diet. And what are the unhealthy products? All those ultra-processed products, packaged, with a long list of ingredients and that have undergone major manufacturing processes until they are marketed: pastries, salty sancks, snacks, sugary drinks, pizzas, juices, cookies, dairy desserts, sauces, light or diet products …
2. Don’t add sugar. You should try to disengage from sugar, it will not be easy, but if you have completed the first step, you are already half way done. Once you leave all these types of products, you only have to eliminate the added sugar. Nothing of 2 sachets of sugar in each coffee (only with 3 coffees are 60 grams of sugar!), Of sweetening the infusions or making homemade pastries (even being homemade, if you make it with sugar, it is still insane). You can learn more and say goodbye to sugar once and for all with the sugar academy course.
3. Drink water. Forget it, to drink: water. Don’t look for alternatives, just water. It is the best possible option. Of course, there are others that we could accept such as sparkling water, tomato juice, flavored waters at home or infusions, but the easiest thing is: water. And always keeping in mind step 2.
4. Ensure a serving of vegetables at each meal. Note that I have used the word  ration , which implies 150-200 grams of vegetables. That’s right, at each lunch and dinner there should be at least 150 or 200 grams of vegetables. That is a large plate of spinach or chard, a salad, a beautiful tomato, a varied stir fry or a plate of green beans. Ah! And the potato does not count as a vegetable. To finish completing, add 2 or 3 pieces of fruit.
5. More vegetables, less animals. You should eat more vegetable protein such as legumes and their derivatives and not so much animal protein. Try to also eliminate cold cuts and processed meats and replace them with some good chickpeas, for example. More nuts and seeds. Cereals, in their integral version. One way to do this is to practice  more market and less supermarket.