Healthy Eating Ultimate Guide: Start Eating Healthy Without Being Miserable

So you want to start eating healthy, eh?

Amazing!

We’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people like you transform into very superheroes, and we focus on proper nutrition to do so.

These are the word-for-word strategies we teach our Online Coaching clients, and we’ve used these tips to help them lose weight and get in unconfined shape without stuff miserable.

No shame, no guilt, just results! Learn well-nigh our Coaching Program.

Plus, we use fun LEGO photos and gifs to alimony you entertained.

In this Ultimate Guide, we’ll imbricate everything you need to start eating healthy today:

• The TRUTH well-nigh healthy eating (DON’T SKIP).
• What is “healthy eating” exactly?
• How to start eating healthy: eating real food.
• What well-nigh fruit. Is fruit healthy?
• Are cheese and dairy healthy?
• What’s the right nutrition for me: Keto, Paleo, Mediterranean?
• Healthy grocery shopping, cooking, and meal prep.
• 19 healthy meals you can melt today.
• How to simplify nutrition (3 steps)
• None of this matters without your BIG WHY:
• Healthy Eating: Next Steps.

Let’s jump in!

The Truth Well-nigh Healthy Eating

It’s really easy to tell people the pursuit advice:

“To lose weight, just eat increasingly REAL food.”

“Just eat less fast supplies and junk food.”

“Try to eat increasingly organic vegetables watered by unicorn tears, farm-to-table meals served by centaurs, and kale omletes made with eggs from chickens that you raised since birth.”

Okay so maybe people don’t say the last one.

But it’s not far from what healthy people say to people who can’t seem to get healthy.

In my opinion, these positions are completely out of touch with reality and it makes me plum dog mad.

For starters, fast supplies is crazy succulent and dirt cheap, and often the only way that many rented parents can feed themselves and their kids.^[1]

Next, applying morality and guilt to supplies consumption (“I’m stuff ‘so bad’ by eating this cookie”) creates an emotional rollercoaster – my least favorite kind of roller coaster.

I midpoint come on, we don’t need to be told that freshly grown fruits and veggies are largest for us than junk food.

We don’t need to be told that organic grilled yellow and kale salad is healthier than a Double Whopper with Cheese.

We all know this!

So rather than “trying harder” to eat healthier we’re going to use things like “science” and “human psychology” and “excessive quotation marks.”

Cool?

Here’s what you need to know: If you’re just trying to be healthier and maybe lose some weight, there’s no need to start funneling kale smoothies, mainlining yellow and broccoli, and withdrawing your loyalty to the Burger King.

You can lose weight and be healthy while still eating these foods occasionally.

Heck, people have lost weight by eating Twinkies^[2] and drinking soda and eating at McDonald’s 3 times per day.^[3]

I share this info not to promote those foods, but rather to make a big point:

If you are terrified of giving up all “junk food”…

You do not need to requite up fast supplies if it brings you joy.

You do not need to finger shame for eating ice cream.

You do not need to use terms like “cheat meal” or “guilty pleasure” when talking well-nigh a chocolate tweedle cookie.

Food isn’t good or evil, my dear friend!

It’s just food!

Let’s bring it all together:

If we have unrepealable health goals, we can requite ourselves the weightier endangerment of success by getting strategic well-nigh what foods we say “YES” to, and what foods we say “SOMETIMES” to.

These YES foods requite us increasingly energy and have fewer calories on stereotype than “junk food,” which ways we’re likely to eat fewer total calories without realizing it.

And thus, we end up with the Triforce of Awesome:

• A longer lifespan.^[4a]
• A smaller waistline.^[4b]
• A happier, healthier existence.^[5]

So what are these magical foods we’re talking about?

I thought you’d never ask.

What is Healthy Eating?

Removing all the morality and science of food, let’s talk well-nigh a realistic definition of “healthy food”:

“Foods I can eat commonly that requite me unbearable fuel to get through the day AND don’t make me miserable.”

Most doctors, websites, and books have often the same list of “healthy foods”:

• Protein like poultry, meat, low-fat dairy, and legumes.
• Fruits and vegetables.
• Healthy carbohydrates like rice and quinoa.
• Healthy fats like almonds and olive oil.
• Occasional full-fat cheese and dairy.

(A increasingly well-constructed list of healthy foods is below).

Why is it that these are the foods that happen to end up on every list on every website when it comes to “healthy eating?”

Simple.

They are full of vitamins and minerals while moreover stuff lower in calories than ultra-processed foods that are hands overconsumed.^[6]

They moreover fill us up, making us finger satiated, and alimony us under our calorie sponsoring for the day.^[7]

Now you’re starting to get it:

If we can prioritize these foods on our plate plane occasionally, we’ll finger full increasingly often while eating fewer calories…

Which leads to sustainable weight loss and maintenance!

Let me momentum this point well-nigh into your smart-ass (not literally).

Each of the pursuit foods contains 200 calories in the quantities shown (courtesy of wiseGEEK):

And here’s a huge plate of broccoli, moreover 200 calories:

In this context, the realization that we might overeat unrepealable foods compared to others starts to wilt increasingly clear:

• If we unwittingly overeat broccoli, we might eat an uneaten 20 calories. And who unwittingly overeats broccoli?
• If we unwittingly overeat spaghetti, we might eat an uneaten 500-1000 calories.
• If we unwittingly eat a family-sized bag of Sour Patch Kids, we might eat an uneaten 2000 calories (and have no tastebuds left on your tongue)^[8].

Which brings me to the next point:^[9]

We humans are terrible at estimating how many calories we eat.

Like, really really bad at it. I bet the proportions of the whilom foods surprised you.

We unceasingly eat much increasingly than we realize, by as much as 47% .^[10]

To make matters worse, we moreover OVERestimate how many calories we shrivel through exercise.

One study showed that Fitness trackers like AppleWatch or Fitbit do not estimate energy burned through exercise accurately, some by as much as 90%!^[11].

That’s why we made this fun infographic:

So when we “can’t lose weight,” it’s not considering we have a wrenched metabolism.

It’s not considering we have bad genetics^[12].

Or that we’re not eating for our thoroughbred type.

It’s considering we unceasingly eat too much supplies without realizing it.

Because we always have a ready supply of new energy from recently eaten food, increasingly than we need, our soul NEVER has to dip into our stored fat to shrivel for fuel.

And when we think we’ve out-exercised our bad diet, we really haven’t.

So it’s time to stop “trying harder” and instead “try differently”:

In order for us to get healthy, we need to find ways to include increasingly foods that fill us up AND taste good.

Luckily, I have that list riiiiight here!

How to Start Eating Healthy (Healthy Supplies List)

There are three big macronutrients that we’re going to focus on as we build our plate like the image above:

• Protein: towers blocks for our muscles.
• Carbohydrates: our persons will shrivel as fuel.
• Fats: can be burned as fuel, and moreover helps with nutrition absorption!

#1) PROTEIN: Priority Numero Uno.

Protein is amazing.

Your soul uses protein to rebuild your muscles and alimony you strong, expressly if you are exercising or strength training regularly.

Protein is both good for you AND highly satiating.^[13]

Protein can come from any number of sources, including:

• Meat (beef, bison, pork).
• Poultry (chicken, turkey, duck).
• Eggs!^[14]
• Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp).
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas).

Not a meat-eater? Read our massive plant-based guide!

A serving of protein is well-nigh the size and thickness of your palm.

*The 4 oz serving is for an uncooked piece of meat. Cooking reduces well-nigh 25% of the weight, bringing it lanugo to well-nigh 3 oz.

When towers a plate, aim for the pursuit value of protein:

• Dudes: 1-2 servings (6-8 oz or well-nigh 170-228 g): two palms
• Dudettes: 1 serving (3-4 oz or well-nigh 85-114 g): 1 palm.

If you’re curious, here’s how much protein is in a serving of food:

• 4 oz (113 g) serving of yellow has virtually 30 g of protein.
• 4 oz (113 g) serving of salmon has 23 g of protein
• 4 oz (113 g) of steak has 28 g of protein.

As we imbricate in our “how much protein should I eat per day?” you can target anywhere from 80% to 100% of your bodyweight in pounds per gram of protein, with an upper limit of 250g^[15]:

• If you weigh 150 pounds (68 kg), target 120-150g of protein.
• If you weigh 200 pounds (90 kg), target 160-200g of protein.
• If you weigh 250 pounds (113 kg), target 200-250g of protein.
• If you weigh increasingly than 250 pounds (113 kg), target 250g of protein.

#2: VEGETABLES: The difference-maker when it comes to healthy eating and weight management.

They are nutrient-dense: full of all the good nutrients that your soul can use to function at optimal performance.

Next, they are voluminous but calorie-light, which ways you can eat lots of them, you’ll finger full, but you’re unlikely to over-consume calories.

A serving of veggies is well-nigh the size of your fist.

Remember this is what just 200 calories of broccoli looks like (holy crap). This is at least 5 full servings:

Here’s a quick, non-complete list of veggies that can fill your plate:

• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Cauliflower
• Spinach
• Kale
• Spaghetti squash^[16]
• Brussels sprouts
• Zucchini
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Onion
• Asparagus

Target 2 servings of vegetables on your plate – it should take up ½ the plate!

“But Steve, I don’t like vegetables…yet!”

That’s cool, I didn’t eat vegetables until I was 22. Now, they’re a main staple of every meal I eat.

If this is you, read our guide on “how to make vegetables taste good.”

To recap portion sizes of protein and vegetables:

#3) HEALTHY CARBOHYDRATES: Fuel and fiber!

These are the foods that can be an important part of a diet, provided you eat them in the right quantities for your goals.

These foods are moreover unconfined to slosh right without a strenuous strength training workout to help your muscles and liver refill their glycogen stores (their energy tanks^[17], essentially).

Examples of healthy carbohydrates:

• Rice
• Legumes, lentils
• Quinoa
• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Yams
• Whole grain specie (or pasta)

This is a list of REAL food, minimally processed, that moreover have plenty of fiber^[18].

If you’re wondering how fruit factors into this equation, that’s the next section.

Back to healthy carbs: when consumed in towardly amounts, these are unconfined foods that can help you finger full and requite you energy and all that jazz.

Just make sure you know what an actual portion of these foods are!

A LOT of people unwittingly overeats carbohydrate-heavy foods, plane healthy ones, and then wonders why they aren’t losing weight.

To help you get largest at eyeballing serving sizes:

1 serving of a starchy carbohydrate is 1 cupped hand (uncooked), or your two hands forming a cup (cooked).

Here are some images to help you learn proper portion sizes (thanks to SafeFood):

#4) HEALTHY FATS: No longer the enemy!

Fat had a bad rep in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but now things are swinging wayyyyy when in the other direction.

In some circles, dietary fat is considered a superfood – the healthiest thing on the planet that moreover does your taxes for you.

Let’s get to the truth:

Fat is neither a superfood nor evil.

It’s just a macronutrient that you can eat that can help you reach your goals in the right quantity, or alimony you from your goals if it’s overconsumed.

When your doctor tells you to eat increasingly healthy fats, she’s referring to polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats^[19].

Healthy fat can be found in foods like:

• Avocado
• Almonds
• Walnuts
• Macadamia nuts
• Olive oil
• Almond butter
• Peanut butter

Now, science has recently come virtually on saturated fat too^[20] – once completely vilified, but now timidly considered okay for moderate consumption.

Saturated fats can come from things like:

• Whole milk
• Full fat dairy
• Coconut oil
• Grass-fed butter
• Lard
• Fatty cuts of meat

Fat can be good for you provided you’re eating the right quantity for your goals.

However, like carbs, fats can be overconsumed unwittingly too.

To help you gauge: a serving size of fat is roughly the size of your thumb!

THIS is a single serving of almonds (162 calories):

THIS is a serving of olive oil (119 calories, taken from Runtastic):

As you can see, if you’re not shielding – you can unwittingly eat an uneaten 500 calories of “healthy fats” by absentmindedly eating too many “heart-healthy” fats.

Many folks in our Coaching Program had us unriddle why they weren’t losing weight, plane though they “only ate grilled yellow and veggies.”

When we dug into it, they had been preparing all of their supplies in an uneaten 500-600 calories worth of olive oil they weren’t written for.

To recap carbs and fats: finger self-ruling to include a starchy carb on your plate in the form of rice, potatoes, pasta, or legumes. Healthy fats can spice up a meal, provided you’re using an towardly portion size

I realize that was a CRAZY value of info, so let’s put it all on the same Healthy Plate:

• 1-2 servings of protein (¼ of plate)
• 2 servings of vegetables (½ of plate)
• 1 serving potatoes, rice, or pasta. (1/4th of plate)
• 1 serving of fat (size of your thumb)
• 1 zero-calorie or low-calorie instillation (water, nutrition soda, tea)

I know that not all of your meals are going to be perfectly segmented like a bento box. For example:

• A fatty cut of meat like yellow thighs ways your fat and protein are commingling. Cool.
• Lentils and legumes midpoint your protein and your carbs are tying at the hip. Swell.
• A burrito trencher with chicken, rice, guacamole, and cheese ways all of your macros are cohabitating. Neato!
• Salmon cooked in olive oil and coated in almond flakes ways your fat and protein have fused. Stupendous!

This plate and serving size stuff whilom is just to help you get started thinking well-nigh healthy supplies differently and in proper portion sizes:

• Trying to lose weight? Reduce your portions of carbs and fats.
• Trying to gain weight? Increase your portions of carbs and fats!

Remember, all calories count.

I can once predict your next series of questions:

• “What well-nigh beverages?” Simple. Liquid calories count too. So stick to low or zero-calorie drinks like water, tea, coffee, and nutrition soda.
• “How well-nigh condiments?” Grilled yellow slathered in 1000 calories of buffalo sauce ways you’re still eating a calorie bomb!
• “But what well-nigh things like Paleo or Keto? I thought low carb = healthy?” I write that in the “which nutrition is right for me?” section. Alimony reading.

What’s the Deal with Fruit? Is Fruit Healthy?

As we lay out in our “Is Fruit Healthy?” Guide, fruit is veritably healthy and can help you reach your goals – in the right quantities.

Fruits are full of nutrients, packed with fiber, and can make for a unconfined snack or part of a protein-focused breakfast!

Personally, I tousle up frozen mixed berries in my post-workout smoothie.

Just remember that fruit, like every other food, obeys the laws of thermodynamics.

So, simply be enlightened of the calories (and carb and webbing content if you’re pursuit a lower-carb diet).

Here’s a list of the calorie, carbohydrate, and webbing content of some worldwide fruit:

• Apple: 95 cal, 25g carbs, 4.4g fiber.
• Banana: 105 cal, 27g carbs, 3.1g fiber.
• Orange: 45 cal, 11g carbs, 2.3g fiber.
• Pear: 100 cal, 28g carbs, 3g fiber.
• Peach: 59 cal, 14g carbs, 2.3g fiber.
• Strawberries (1 cup): 47 cal, 11g carbs, 3g fiber.
• Pineapple (1 cup): 82 cal, 22g carbs, 2.3g fiber.
• Grapes (1 cup): 62 cal, 16g carbs, 0.8g fiber.
• Raspberries (1 cup): 65 cal, 15g carbs, 8 fiber.

Fruit is a better, healthier volitional to nutrient-empty supplies from a vending machine.

Where fruit can get you in trouble is if you start to move in the direction of “fruit-like”:

#1) Fruit juices (cranberry juice, orange juice, grape juice): these are upper calorie, sugar-filled beverages.

For example, here are the calories in one 8 oz (or 1 cup)^[21] serving of:

• Apple Juice: 114 calories^[22]
• Orange Juice: 119 calories^[23]
• Grape Juice: 14 calories^[24]

#2) Zestless fruit: notoriously easy to overeat considering they are so small. Since the water has been taken out, all that’s left is the sugar and fiber.

Here’s 1 serving of raisins, which is 108 calories and 21 g of sugar:

If you are saying “oh man, I eat 5x that many raisins when I eat them…” then multiply those calorie and sugar numbers by 5!

3) Fruit Smoothies: Just considering it’s a fruit smoothie doesn’t midpoint it won’t make you fat! Have you seen the calorie count and sugar content of smoothies and ‘green drinks’? Yikes.

• Green Machine Naked Juice (15.2 oz or 450 ml bottle): 270 calories, 53 g of sugar.
• Smoothie King Banana Boat (20 oz or 591 ml smoothie): 450 calories, 70 g of sugar.

**If you prepare your smoothie at home with a blender, it can unquestionably be healthy since the webbing is intact. Here’s my personal recipe.**

To recap: fruit is healthy, provided you stick to fresh or frozen and not fruit-like food, zestless fruit, or canned fruit packed in syrup.

If you enjoy a small glass of orange juice occasionally, or you pack a serving of raisins in your lunch and it makes life worth living, by all means!

Just don’t chug OJ by the gallon, drink a 64 oz “real fruit smoothie,” and eat raisins by the handful and then wonder why you’re not losing weight.

Are Cheese and Dairy healthy?

We get questions well-nigh these two types of supplies frequently.

Let me start by saying I’m thesping you’re not doing Paleo (which says “NO dairy and NO cheese”), or plant-based (which says NO to all unprepossessing products).

I’ll moreover seem you’re not doing Keto, which scrutinizingly requires you to load up on dairy and cheese to eat unbearable fat every day!

Let’s pretend you’re just curious if cheese and/or dairy can be consumed on a “healthy diet:”:

YES, you can still eat cheese and be healthy.

YES, you can still eat dairy and be healthy.

And there was much rejoicing:

Like the healthy carbs and fats listed above, it all comes lanugo to your calories consumed in a day, and if these foods fit into your daily calorie goals:

1. Want to put cheese on top of your salad of yellow and vegetables? Great!
2. Want to eat greek yogurt, a scoop of protein powder, and frozen berries for your breakfast? Amazing!
3. Want to eat a trencher of cereal with skim milk (or whole milk) in the morning with your kid surpassing school? No problem.

This is true for higher-fat cheeses or full-fat dairy too – the supplies just needs to fit into your goals!

Luckily, all dairy comes labeled, and most cheese will come with a nutrition label on it too.

Just ensure that you’re choosing towardly portion sizes. For reference, here are four variegated servings of cheddar cheese (about 113 calories a serving):

And here’s a serving of greek yogurt (120 calories in 142 grams):^[25]

And although nobody in the history of the world has overly eaten just one serving…here is a serving of ice cream:

(A scoop of ice surf the size of a tennis wittiness is well-nigh 127 calories, cleverly shown above.)

So, dairy and cheese are both perfectly winning healthy supplies options! Just make sure they fit into your goals.

If you are NOT losing weight, and you slosh a lot of dairy and/or cheese, consider measuring your intake and see if it’s in line with your expectations!

What’s the Weightier Nutrition for Me? Keto vs Paleo vs Plant-based.

“Low fat diets? Low carb diets? No carb diets? I don’t know which one is the BEST diet!”

“Help me, Steve Kamb, you’re my only hope.”

Okay, you’re probably not saying that, but it’s an excuse to pay homage to Star Wars so I can use the unconfined photo above.

You probably do have questions though well-nigh what’s healthier, a low fat nutrition or a low carb diet.

Low carb diets are all the rage right now, but are they healthy and will they help you lose weight?

Maybe.

It may depend on how your soul regulates glucose (blood sugar):^[26]

Some who don’t regulate glucose well may do largest on a lower-carb diet.

Others who do regulate glucose well might do largest on a lower-fat diet.

Studies show that people who follow EITHER a low fat OR a low carb nutrition will still lose weight, as long as they are in caloric restriction and can pinion to the nutrition for at least a year.^[27]

So, it comes lanugo to: “which nutrition are you increasingly likely to stick with for a year or longer?”

I personally lost 22 pounds over 6 months on a lower-fat diet (and eating plenty of carbs), but everybody is different.

This ways you’ll need to experiment and see which is largest for your lifestyle, and your day-to-day well-being.

But I bet you have questions well-nigh the big popular diets too.

I’ve written a huge guide that covers all popular weight-loss diets together, but we’ve moreover written individual ultimate guides that cover:

• The Keto Nutrition (Ketogenic Diet).
• Intermittent Fasting.
• The Paleo Diet.
• The Mediterranean Diet.
• Vegan and Plant-Based Diets.
• Carnivore Diet.
• The Military Diet.

Let’s squint at each of these diets and explain why they will help you lose weight, at least temporarily:

Truth #1: Every nutrition works in the short term.

Truth #2: Nearly every nutrition fails in the long term.

Let’s write these two truths individually:

Why does every nutrition work in the short term?

All the diets whilom have a clever way of restricting calories without you needing to count calories, which leads to weight loss:

• Paleo Diet: eliminate everything but veggies, meat, fruit, and nuts.
• Intermittent Fasting: skip an unshortened meal!
• Keto Diet: remove an unshortened macronutrient from your nutrition (carbs).
• Military Diet: Only eat specific foods in unrepealable quantities.
• Plant-based Diet: Only eat foods from plants.
• Carnivore Diet: Only eat meat! Eliminate everything else.

Of course, there are plenty of benefits from pursuit unrepealable diets for unrepealable groups of people. For example, Larry went Keto and it helped him reduce inflammation from rheumatoid arthritis.

However, 99% of the reason why these diets result in short-term weight loss is that they get us to eat fewer calories!

The problems upspring when we get to Truth 2:

“Nearly every nutrition fails in the long term.”

Put flipside way:

Temporary changes create temporary results.

If somebody “goes Keto” for 60 days, they’ll most likely lose weight, and might plane finger better! This is cool.

BUT!

(There’s unchangingly a but…)

If they spend those 60 days in misery, dreaming of carbs, counting lanugo the meals until they can “go when to eating like normal,” they will put all of the weight back.

In order for restrictive diets to create permanent results for somebody, they need to be unexplored PERMANENTLY!

For most of us mere mortals, we can’t stick with a restrictive nutrition for 30 days, let vacated a year or a decade.

For these reasons, I strongly teach you to transpiration how you think well-nigh dieting.

You need to determine how likely you are to stick with a restrictive nutrition permanently:

1. How uneager are you to change?
2. How likely are you to stick with your changes?
3. Have you tried a restrictive nutrition in the past and failed?
4. Do you have a healthy relationship with food?
5. Do you have an “all or nothing?” mindset?

Like playing a video game, you need to determine what level of difficulty you are willing to attempt.

Playing on “Ultra Nonflexible Difficulty” (like Keto) gives you less room for error, but it can moreover produce impressive results quickly – if you don’t rage quit.

And 99% of people rage quit restrictive diets like Keto.

So what’s the weightier nutrition for you?

I’ll requite you the same wordplay that I requite people when they ask me, “What’s the weightier workout plan?”:

The weightier diet is the one that helps you reach your goals, that you ENJOY, and that you’ll unquestionably stick with permanently!

Personally, I don’t follow any sort of restrictive diet.

I’m a big fan of small changes that sooner produce big results, like my boy Optimus Prime:

This is why I’ve SLOWWWWLY adjusted my nutrition over the past decade, so that no transpiration was too drastic and I could stick with it permanently.

It’s not a diet. It’s a lifestyle change. Permanently.

And that’s what I would recommend for you:

Small, non-scary, permanent changes over a long time period!

You need to start thinking in terms of “days and years,” not “weeks and months:”

How to Grocery Shop, Melt and Meal Prep!

Okay! Now that you’ve unswayable your healthy eating strategy, it’s time to take action.

There are three big steps you’ll want to master if this is your path:

Step #1: Grocery Shopping!

You can read our full guide on “How to grocery shop”, and we plane have a video that keeps things fun too:

Here’s how to grocery shop like a pro:

• Stick mostly to the outer rim. This ways you’re mostly ownership meat, fruit, and veggies^[28].
• Read the nutrition label! Just considering it says it’s healthy on the front doesn’t midpoint it is. Read the nutrition label and learn portion sizes. This can help alimony you unelevated your daily calorie goal.
• Don’t shop hungry! It may seem silly, but you end up ownership way increasingly junk supplies unwittingly if you shop while hangry (a mix of hungry-angry, never a unconfined emotion).
• Make a list. Surpassing you go grocery shopping, write lanugo everything you should get. You can plane put “non-healthy” supplies items on the list. But then you can only buy what’s on your list! This ways no snacks in the check-out aisle, or ownership Oreos just considering they’re on sale! Plan ahead. Stick to the script, sister.

Step #2: Learn to cook!

In the next section, we share recipes for basic healthy meals that you can melt at home.

Here’s why cooking at home is amazing:

1. You know all of the ingredients. When you eat at restaurants or pick up fast food, there are often subconscious calories in the cooking oils and sauces that are sabotaging your healthy efforts. Considering of this, it’s really nonflexible to have an idea of how many calories you’re consuming. When you prepare supplies at home, you know what you’re getting.
2. You can recreate healthier versions of your favorite foods. Making homemade tacos or pizza with homemade dough can be a unconfined date-night experience, makes your stomach happy, AND can help you reach your goals!
3. You save money. If your upkeep is tight, grocery shopping and cooking your own meals is a unconfined way to wastefulness your upkeep and self-ruling up some cash! Our most successful coaching clients work with their coaches on towers the habit of cooking at home.

Now, if you’re somebody who only overly uses your kitchen to heat up microwave meals, that’s no problem.

Here are the guides you should trammels out:

• Cooking 101: Essential Kitchen Tools: Not sure what kind of knives to get, or what you REALLY need? I’ve been there. This is why we created this guide for you!
• How to Stock Your Pantry: If you’re not sure what to stock your shelves with, and how to set yourself up for long-term success.

Step #3 (BONUS): Meal Prep and Batch Cooking!

This step isn’t necessary, but if your goal is to make healthy eating a habit for you and your family, batch cooking can be the difference maker!

By “batch cooking,” I simply midpoint setting whispered time to prepare larger quantities of supplies at the start of the week, so that throughout the week you once have meals to eat!

Personally, batch cooking reverted my life.

And every single success story we’ve featured on Nerd Fitness (like this one) involved some sort of batch cooking (planning your meals for the week ahead).

• Here’s our guide on “How to start Batch Cooking and Meal Prep.”
• Let me walk you through how I batch melt yellow for the week. There’s plane a video too:

Follow these rules, and you will crush it in the Healthy Eating Department^[29]!

19 Healthy Eating Meals You Can Melt Today

“Okay Steve, you have me convinced I should be eating increasingly healthy foods. But I am a nerd and I need specific instructions to follow!”

I got you.

As a kid raised on LEGO and K’nex, I am the word-for-word same way!

Here are options to get the wittiness rolling on healthy breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners. Use these as inspiration or starting points for your meal planning!

3 BREAKFASTS (Unless you do Intermittent fasting!)

Breakfast 1: Prosciutto-Wrapped Mini Frittata Muffins (4 muffins)

• • Calories: 440
  • Protein: 32g
  • Fat: 24g
  • Carbs: 16g

Breakfast 2: Kale Breakfast Salad (1/4 of recipe)

• • Calories: 331
  • Protein: 15g
  • Fat: 12g
  • Carbs: 14g

Breakfast 3: Breakfast Meal Prep Bowls (1 bowl)

• • Calories: 204
  • Protein: 10g
  • Fat: 10g
  • Carbs: 19g

3 LUNCHES

Lunch 1: Spicy Tuna Cakes (4 cakes)

• • Calories: 368
  • Protein: 20g
  • Fat: 20g
  • Carbs: 28g

Lunch 2: Chicken Zucchini Enchilada (1 enchilada )

• • Calories: 154
  • Protein: 16.7g
  • Fat: 7.2g
  • Carbs: 6.1g

Lunch 3: Lettuce Wrap Sandwich (1 sandwich)

• • Calories: 279
  • Protein: 26g
  • Fat: 19g
  • Carbs: 10g

3 SNACKS (Unless you’re on “Team No Snack”)

Snack 1: Green Protein Snack Pack (2)

• • Calories: 234
  • Protein: 22g
  • Fat: 16g
  • Carbs: 32g

Snack 2: Avocado Egg Salad (1/4 recipe)

• • Calories: 330
  • Protein: 18g
  • Fat: 25g
  • Carbs: 8g

Snack 3: Baked Yellow Wings (1/5 of batch)

• • Calories: 440
  • Protein: 34g
  • Fat: 33g
  • Carbs: 1g

3 DINNERS

Dinner 1: Big-o Bacon Burgers (2 burgers)

• • Calories: 450
  • Protein: 34g
  • Fat: 40g
  • Carbs: 2g

Dinner 2: Vegan Portobello Pizzas (1 pizza)

• • Calories: 165
  • Protein: 7.7g
  • Fat: 10g
  • Carbs: 14.5g

Dinner 3: Ground Whinge Veggie Skillet (1/4 of dish)

• • Calories: 261
  • Protein: 29.5g
  • Fat: 1.8g
  • Carbs: 8.5g

All of these meals are nutrient-dense and low in calories, so they’ll requite you the weightier endangerment at weight management without feeling miserable

Does all that seem like too much?

Watch this video from Nerd Fitness Prime where Coach Justin shows you how to make 7 “No-Cook” meals:

Meals covered in this video:

• Egg and Avocado Rice Cakes
• Cheese and Turkey Roll-ups
• Chicken Pomegranate Salad
• Shrimp Pineapple Salad
• Smoked Salmon Wraps
• Greek Yogurt (with Protein Powder)
• Two-Ingredient Desserts

Want some increasingly ideas? Trammels out 26 Easy Meals You Can Cook.

Just remember, quantity counts:

• If your goal is weight loss: Alimony an eye on the fat and carbs portion of your plate!
• If your goal is weight gain, then you can ratchet up your total calories consumed by increasing your fat and carbohydrate portion of your plate!

Not sure how to make these meals work or how to retread them for your goals?

This is exactly what we do with our Online Coaching Program!

Let us help you make largest supplies choices! Our Online Coaching Program rocks:

How to Simplify Nutrition (3 Steps)

In the video above, Coach Staci walks you through her step-by-step plan for simplifying nutrition.

Yeah, I’ve thrown a lot at you today.

But as Staci mentions above, you can start off small, with some simple steps. Once you get these down, we can work on adding some increasingly simple habits.

To start eating healthy:

• Have a glass of water with every meal.
• Have a vegetable with every meal.
• Have a source of lean protein with every meal.

That’s it!

When someone joins our coaching program, these are often the steps we have them take.

Yeah, sometimes they’ll bulk, thinking this is not enough…

…but consistency is where people start to see real progress.

Don’t overlook the power of simple and resulting habits.

Will You Commit to Healthy Eating?

As we start to wrap up this guide, I have one BIG final question for you:

“Why the hell are you reading this?”

Sorry to be so blunt, but your wordplay matters!

If you are trying to eat largest considering somebody told you to, or considering you think you should, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

You might be excited and motivated to eat healthy today, and that’s great!

But next week, Oscar in Written will put confection in front of you at work, and ask you to “live a little” and eat some confection “just this once.”

And then you’ll discover apps are half-priced at Chatchki’s during happy hour, and you icon “well I once had cake, might as well split some shrimp poppers and lattermost fajitas with Meredith.”

This is how it unchangingly happens: Motivation abandons us when we need it most.

And then one “ehh” nomination becomes three bad choices which becomes “crap, I failed at my diet! I’m a loser. Okay I’ll just try harder next month…”

If you are single-minded to this goal of eating healthier, you need a DAMN good reason to start eating healthier in the first place!

Here are some examples you can build off of:

• “I want to squint largest naked and start dating again.”
• “I want to do epic stuff like running my first 5K.”
• “I don’t want to die early like my dad did.”
• “I want to find out what I’m capable of.”
• “I want to finger pride, not shame, when I squint in the mirror.”

There are many tough days ahead, many happy hours, and sabotaging coworkers.

Having a unconfined reason WHY can be the light in the darkness that helps you navigate the maze of temptation.

In our Nerd Fitness Coaching program, we undeniability this “The Big Why,” and having a reason can be the difference between success and failure:

It’s our Big Why that stops us from living emotionally and chasing instant gratification from a donut or six slices of pizza when we’re sad or stressed.

It’s our Big Why that allows us to say “Yes, I can have a slice of pizza, considering I planned for it in my ‘calorie budget’ today. I’m not gonna finger bad well-nigh it either, considering my breakfast tomorrow is gonna be great.”

It’s our Big Why that allows us to get when on track without a vacation or without just one day of poor eating, instead of letting things slide for a week or a month.

Have your Big Why, and remind yourself of it constantly!

Write it down, put it on a post-it note on your washroom mirror, staple it to your forehead.

But have a REASON you’re committing to change.

It will be crucial when life starts to get rented next week and you want to requite up. So let’s talk well-nigh next week (and beyond!)

Healthy Eating: Next Steps!

This guide has provided you with all of the tools you need to start making healthier choices, but if you are looking to go a bit further…

#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching program: a coaching program for rented people to help them make largest supplies choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

You can schedule a self-ruling undeniability with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the image unelevated for increasingly details:

#2) If you want an word-for-word tabulation for leveling up your nutrition, trammels out Nerd Fitness Journey! Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise increasingly frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

If you follow our Nutrition missions, you’ll learn to eat healthier while earning XP! Sah-weeeet.

Try your self-ruling trial right here:

#3) Join The Rebellion! We have a self-ruling email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so.

I’ll moreover send you tons of self-ruling guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:

Download our self-ruling weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Transpiration Your Life

• Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
• What you need to know well-nigh weight loss and healthy eating
• 3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

Healthy eating will transpiration your life.

But it needs to fit INTO your life too.

Small changes, not dramatic shifts!

You don’t have to requite up the foods you love, you just need to PLAN for them.

Learn how to make a plate like we lay out in this guide.

Prioritize protein, and unchangingly put a fruit or vegetable on your plate surpassing filling the rest of it up!

This will get you 90% of the way towards a unconfined healthy eating strategy.

And when in doubt, whenever you’re not sure if you should eat a particular food, ask yourself “What would Batman do?”

Seriously, this has been studied with children, and it helped them make healthier supplies choices by giving the decision-making over to somebody they looked up to ^[22]. It’s tabbed “self-distancing,” and there’s no reason it can’t work for you too.

Oh, and when you eat a bad meal – who cares?! “Never two in a row,” right? Make the next meal healthy.

YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT:

Start eating healthy today with literally one change:

• Try a new vegetable.
• Cut one soda out of your day.
• Prioritize protein in your next meal.
• Swap out one high-calorie drink for a zero-calorie drink.

I don’t superintendency what the transpiration is, just as long as you make one!

Okay unbearable well-nigh me, let’s talk well-nigh you:

What’s the ONE transpiration you’re going to make today?

For the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: Make sure you read the rest of the wares in our “How to Lose Weight 101” Series!

• “Why can’t I lose weight?”
• Can I build muscle and lose weight at the same time?

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All photo sources can be found right here: Leia eating breakfast, stuffed veggies, stormtroopers and egg, fruit ninja, Caution: Cheese Hazard, Fish soup, Yoda and R2, Happy Monday, almond serving size, olive oil, raisins, serving of cheddar, yogurt, Shopping, dinner on the beach.

The post Healthy Eating Ultimate Guide: Start Eating Healthy Without Stuff Miserable first appeared on Nerd Fitness.