Yay for 2012! It’s a new year where you can start fresh on all those things you’ve been meaning to do. If one of your goals for the New Year is to eat better, good for you, it’s one of mine too! However, if you’re like me your diet consists of lunchables, poutine, and Kraft Dinner so it can be hard to learn where to start. Here are some pro tips from The Food Studio about how to eat better in the New Year.
1) EVERY Meal You Need…
You’ve probably heard before that instead of three big meals a day you’re supposed to eat smaller meals more often. The magic number is 6 meals a day. A meal can be a small as an apple and some almonds or as big as steak and potatoes, but if you’re going to indulge in something unhealthy do it for lunch. By lunch your metabolism is primed and warmed up PLUS you have the whole rest of the day to burn it off.
EVERY meal should have a protein (find it in eggs, salmon, lean chicken) and complex carbohydrates (whole grains, oatmeal, fruits & veggies) if you want to grow up to be big and strong.
Vegetables. Weird.
2) HOW to read the label
Do you REALLY know how much sodium, carbs, or sugar is good or bad for you? Me neither. So instead of learning, let’s do this because it’s way easier. If you look at the ingredients list and you can’t pronounce more than half of the stuff on there, then it’s probably bad for you. Also lots of ingredients usually equals lots of preservatives which is bad. A short list of ingredients usually means you’re eating something healthy.
Quinoa, eggs, and healthy bread. Breakfast of super heroes!
3) No Excuses!
Fun fact! The way your body looks is based on your genetics, your exercise routine, and what you eat, but do you know what the breakdown is?
-10 per cent genetics
-10 per cent exercise
-80 per cent what you eat!!!!
-5 per cent how “real” you keep it*
*5 per cent margin of error
Eat healthy and stay in shape, don’t and you won’t!
Anywhere you use rice, swap it for Quinoa! It is CRAZY healthy for you!
These are just a few tips I learned from Maria at The Food Studio. They have an AMAZING program to help teach regular folk like you and I how to become more skilled in the kitchen. Through their cooking classes you can learn a bunch of different styles of cooking from the bare-bones basics, to pastry baking, to sushi rolling and more! Check out their website by clicking here.