Healthy eating is the place to start when you’re looking for a new lifestyle, a new you, or even exercising the best you into a daily routine. So ask yourself, what are staples that you eat every day, and how can you introduce a more healthy collection of foods into your eating habits. A lot of people find that the word ‘diet’ refers to you something that fat people need to do, or uber health conscience people do, but really, what you eat IS your diet. That’s just the plain truth. First thing to think about is the three meals of the day. What do eat? For me, it’s an easy choice.

Breakfast

My breakfasts consist of fruits, oats, flax seeds, and almond milk, all blended together and poured into a full beer mug, and gulped down in a few quick minutes.

Now, I’ve gone through quite the different milk selections, from dairy milk, to soy milk, to rice milk and finally on to almond milk. This is a choice I’ve made because of the calcium. Look on the boxes and you’ll see the content of each. Just take a few minutes at the grocer and look at the content and ingredients of each.

The rest is an easy, bananas, apples, oranges, cherries, melon, watermelon, and blueberries, fruits that are very healthy. For a few years now, I’ve eliminated dairy from the diet, so this means no eggs in the morning, or cheese on those scrambled eggs, or cereal with milk, or.. well, you get the point, this eliminates a lot of things from the menu.

On to lunch.

This is kind of a free for all. But, really think about the traditional meals. Sandwiches, wraps, tuna bowls, well really, put anything into the mix and you have a good lunch. But, what I think really matters, is that you are eating a dish that doesn’t consist of grease, fats, or salts. You most definitely want to avoid the fast food chains like McDonalds, Arby’s, etc. These kind of places will suck you into their fries, or their milkshakes, or their pop. Bad news.

Really good ideas are:

• A cold cut sandwich with lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, meat, mayo and mustard is one of my faves.
• A salad of many varieties.
• Energy bars like Nature Valley, or Clif bars (which are my favorite) are a good choice for lunch, and quick.
• Wraps with left over roast, or chicken salad stuffed in
• A bowl of tuna (I eat it just the tuna, but mayo and lettuce is a good addition too)
• Fry up a some chicken with yams

Dinner

A lot of rumors are out there that you need a lot of proteins to stay alive. These rumors come from the producers of protein shakes and supplements as a propaganda machine, in my honest opinion.

That being said, you still need to get yourself some healthy meat into your body for consumption. I recommend a ranch where they sell range roaming, grass and grain fed, hormone free, and healthy cattle for you to eat.

This ensures that you’re not eating meat that’s been brutalized and lives in a cubicle for its whole life, being fattened with hormones and steroids, and eating pesticide rich grass. It’s very important to purchase good meat.

To go with your meat, make sure you mix up your dishes. I find it really helpful to learn a few key recipes, that you can use frequently and fall back on when you’re in a rush or just want to get it done. This way it’s not such a daunting task to get out the cookbook, buy the spices and ingredients, and the carefully care and attend to the meal.

But if you do want to try something new, you can see some of our recipes.

I’m a cook that likes to be creative in the kitchen. A must have staple for me is to keep at least a dozen different spices to use that I instantly recognize the flavour of. It’s easy to experiment with this kind of stuff, so have fun!

The idea though, is that you are eating healthy dishes. I find that if I eat enough main dish, with maybe sticking an avocado or a carrot in there on the side, I get all the food in my belly to make me feel like I’ve eaten to much, and don’t want or require any junk food or rich desserts.

I always feel like I’m killing my body when I eat the kind of crap that comes in wrappers, so for me it’s always been easy to eat healthy. A policy that I’ve started is that I don’t buy things that come in plastic or metal wrapping. This means no .99c cans of soup, no chocolate bars, chips, gummy bears, etc. but, naturally, I am not an uncompromising human being, and I do have cravings for some chocolate once and a while, in which case I’ll go to the bulk section and stock up with some chocolate covered almonds! Yum.

I have also compromised on chips, I do occasionally buy myself some nachos and salsa and eat those. I usually find when that happens, I get to full to eat a dinner, so it’s a substitute, which isn’t a good thing.

I find it really helpful to buy snacks that are going to be healthy choices, and not even have the option between candy or healthy in the house. I buy snacks like apples, bananas, or bulk trail mix, instead of Lays BBQ chips, or Mr. Big chocolate bars. Hopefully this will give you some inspiration on how to start focusing on your diet.

Remember, water is key, and a glass of wine never hurt anyone!