Eating a balanced diet and giving your body the nutrients  that help to maintain or improve overall health  can be complicated  as everybody has different needs. The following tips  may not give every single person the most optimal diet possible but if you’re just starting out it is a good place to begin:

–  Eat at least three ‘meals’ per day. This  means you sit down and eat something substantial, rather than snacking or grazing. Together these meals should provide the majority of your calorie intake  (if you’re not sure how many calories you need you can use an online calorie calculator).

– Have at least 1-2 fist sized portions of fruit and/or vegetables with every one of these meals. The more variety across the day/week the better.

– Have about 20-40g of protein with each meal (if you’re not sure how much protein your food contains use a calorie counter that provides macronutrient information).  If you follow a plant-based diet make sure you know where you can get it from (Google plant-based protein sources). Getting enough protein from plant-based foods might be challenging sometimes. If you’re not able to cover your protein intake by consuming real food use a vegan protein powder.

Aim to avoid or at least limit processed food.

Pay attention to your thirst cues and drink water when you feel thirsty.

Of course a balanced diet is a much more complex  (1)  thing than just following these tips but it is a good start to building new and healthier eating habits. Once you have applied these changes, you can go into more detail to optimize your diet.

( 1) Sooner or later you have to do some research to understand your calorie intake, macronutrients (at least protein) and the best sources of macronutrients.  Don’t get obsessed with calorie counters but use them as a tool to understand what you eat.

H ere is another article that might help to build healthier eating habits – Start with the grocery shopping (click here to read it) .