Purely Nourished

Let’s face it, eat­ing healthy can be con­fus­ing with all the con­flict­ing advice out there. Here are the 7 keys to eat­ing healthy 100% per­cent of the time.

• Read the ingre­di­ent list.
• Know what a serv­ing size is and stick to it. Por­tions are the num­ber one cause of weight gain. With huge por­tions becom­ing the norm, no won­der we are hav­ing dif­fi­culty stick­ing to a sin­gle serving.
• Lis­ten to your body. What does your body truly want/crave?  A sweet crav­ing that you think is for candy or cook­ies could actu­ally be a crav­ing for a sweet veg­etable. Try to stop, breathe, and ana­lyze to deter­mine if you might be just as sat­is­fied eat­ing a piece of fruit.
• Equip your fridge with healthy options. Pick up these 20 ingre­di­ents the next time you go to the super­mar­ket. They could be the key to keep­ing you from eat­ing unsat­is­fy­ing empty calories.
• Bal­ance your meal. Include a car­bo­hy­drate, pro­tein, and fat in every meal you make.
• Be flex­i­ble. Try to eat health­fully 90% of the time and what­ever you feel like eat­ing 10% of the time. We are all human and leav­ing a lit­tle room for flex­i­bil­ity is what will help you main­tain a healthy diet.
• Drink H2O along with any meal and you’ll real­ize you feel fuller faster. Many times when you feel hun­gry after you’ve eaten, it’s because you are actu­ally thirsty.

There you have it, short and sweet!

Besides breath, water is the sec­ond most essen­tial need a human requires to sur­vive. Water is a life force and makes up 75% of the body. Unlike with food, a per­son can only go few days with­out it. Hydra­tion is key for a healthy mind, body, and soul. Not only is it nec­es­sary for hydra­tion, it is nec­es­sary for appro­pri­ate kid­ney and liver func­tion, and  allows for smooth facil­i­ta­tion of metab­o­lism. Water is also impor­tant for nor­mal body processes, such as keep­ing the skin, hair, and nails hydrated and is known for revers­ing  headaches, stress, and ten­sion. A per­son who is hydrated is less likely to get sick, suf­fer headaches, develop skin acne, and crave sweets. Crav­ings for sweet foods can be a sure sign of dehy­dra­tion.  When a per­son is sick, stay­ing hydrated is the num­ber one way to reverse symp­toms and get the immune sys­tem back in tip top form.

So how much does one need to drink? Well that depends on you, your body, cli­mate, and phys­i­cal activ­ity. When you are thirsty , it means you are already dehy­drated. My rec­om­men­da­tion is to keep a water bot­tle around so its eas­ily acces­si­ble. Just hav­ing a bot­tle of water around will usu­ally force you to drink it. You should notice a major dif­fer­ence. Peo­ple who tend to drink water on a reg­u­lar basis tend to get sick less and feel more ener­gized through­out the day. They also tend to have fewer food crav­ings and weigh less.

Drink water and you will notice the dif­fer­ence imme­di­ately. Don’t live your life dehy­drated, suf­fer­ing from low energy, crav­ings, and symp­toms. Incor­po­rate more water in your diet and I promise you’ll relieve symp­toms you didn’t even know you had.

One of the most impor­tant things you can do for your health is pre­pare your own meals and snacks for a busy day. Plenty of us go to work and school with­out think­ing about where our next meal will come from. Unfor­tu­nately, meal choices away from the home tend to be costly and nutri­ent poor. Learn to pack your­self healthy meals and snacks for the day, pay­ing close atten­tion to how long you will be away from your kitchen. You will quickly notice a dif­fer­ence in both energy and the money you save.

Prepar­ing your own meals will:

a. Keep you from going hun­gry all day and bing­ing once you arrive home famished.

b. Give you knowl­edge of the ingre­di­ents included in your meal.

c. Allow you to have what you crave and enjoy it at your fin­ger tips.

d. Save time. You will save the extra time it would have taken you to drive to the super mar­ket or local cafe to get a quick bite to eat. Isn’t it true, more times than not, you leave work for a quick meal and you end up bring­ing it back with only a few min­utes to spare before your back on the clock. You barely have a sec­ond to breathe, let alone gulp down a few bites of your meal before your back in the sad­dle, work­ing like a busy lit­tle bee! Not only is eat­ing in such a hur­ried man­ner not enjoy­able, its not good for your diges­tive system.

Peo­ple who eat on-the-go tend to have a greater inci­dence of diges­tive prob­lems. Take fif­teen to twenty min­utes to slow down and taste your food. When you pack your food you save time, money, energy, and your pre­cious health.

Some tips to get you on track to prepar­ing and tak­ing your meals with you:

• Invest in Tup­per­ware, a lunch­box, and a water bottle
• Buy items in bulk, such as nuts, fruits, and seeds; Make sin­gle size por­tions to use as snacks through­out the day.
• Pre­pare an extra serv­ing of the meal you make for din­ner and use it as your lunch for the next day; Use sim­ple spices or sauces to change it up.
• Fill and refill your water bot­tle all day; Drink­ing water will flush your body of tox­ins, keep you ener­gized, and stop you from crav­ing sweets and crunchy snacks. Most peo­ple feel hun­gry when really all they are crav­ing is a big, cold glass of water. Thirst dis­guises itself well as food crav­ings. Always drink water when you feel that you are hav­ing a weird crav­ing for food, more times than not it is because you are thirsty.