So you’ve given up dieting, you’re no longer following a rigid healthy eating plan, but you still want some guidelines as to how to eat healthily.

In this blog post I’m sharing my seven flexible tips for healthy eating – the food freedom edition.

This will be particularly helpful for those of you who’ve given up restrictive dieting and are in the process of making peace with food. You’ve said goodbye to rigid food rules, but you still want to eat in a way that supports your health!

Please know that these tips are meant to be flexible guidelines – and flexibility is key. We are moving away from rigid rules around food and finding something that is flexible and works for you, which is my first point –

#1 Works according to your lifestyle

This is really important!  There’s no point in setting up a structure or guidelines that don’t fit with your lifestyle.  If you’re a super busy working mum, you want to be able to honour your health within that framework. There’s no point in saying you always must cook from scratch if that’s going to stress you out.

Equally if you travel a lot for work, or work from home, you want to find an approach that works for you. This is the very first thing to consider when you are thinking about eating in a way that honours your health.

 

#2 Adding not subtracting

Now that you are no longer restricting your food, I want you to think about adding foods into your week, rather than taking them away. So rather than the focus being on

Oh no, I need to cut the amount of carbs I’m eating

Instead focus on:

How can I add more fruit and vegetables into my week? 

It’s a great opportunity to try out different foods each week to create more variety, which leads to my third point

 

#3 Variety of food & colours

Aim to have a variety of different foods each week – try and change up the types of food you eat, try different protein or carbs. For example if you always eat tuna, try salmon or cod; if you normally eat pasta, try a different type, like quinoa pasta or buckwheat; if you always have a certain type of bread, try a different kind; or if you always eat broccoli and carrots, try spinach and peas…

Or if you always order the same dish in a restaurant, try a new dish…

Do you see what I mean? 

For your long-term health, having a variety of food is important.

The other thing to aim for is a variety of different colours on your plate.  Again, do this with flexibility so if you have days where there’s not too much colour, then don’t beat yourself up.

So here I recommend thinking about your eating across the week. Aim for different colours of the rainbow on your plate – this is a nice way of making sure you get lots of different micro nutrients from the different fruits and vegetables. “Eat the rainbow” as they say.

 

#4 Satisfaction & enjoyment

One of the reasons some people binge, or overeat, is because they aren’t getting enough satisfaction from what they eat. It’s important to honour your taste buds when you eat, so that you enjoy your food and feel satisfied by the end of your meal.

Yes it’s important to consider your nutrients, but food is about more than just fuelling your body.

In fact, research shows that when you think your food is indulgent and you’re enjoying it, you actually produce more fullness hormones so you feel fuller quicker!

 Ask yourself: are you enjoying your meals and feeling satisfied afterwards?

 

#5 Include all macro nutrients

I guess you could call this a balanced meal: aim to include protein, plant, carb and fat in a meal.

You can start with the protein – meat fish, eggs, tofu, lentils, then add the plants – think of your fruit and vegetables here.

The reason I start with these two, is because protein and fibre help you feel that sense of fullness.

Then you want to add fats to give the food deliciousness and sense of satisfaction and then add carbs for energy.

Obviously thinking about all this in a flexible way and according to your lifestyle, it might not work for every meal or snack, but it’s a good rule of thumb.

 

#6 Big picture thinking

I’ve already alluded to this, but I really recommend that you think “big picture” rather than focusing too much on individual foods. The idea is to zoom out and ensure that you’re eating well across a week, but without focusing too much on any individual food or particular meal or day.

If for example you have a day on the weekend where you hardly eat a single vegetable, don’t beat yourself up. It’s so much better to focus on the vegetables you eat across the entire week rather than one particular day!

 

#7 Create an environment that supports health promoting behaviours

Finally, aim to create an environment around you that supports your health promoting behaviours.  If you want to increase variety of fruit and vegetables, that means you have to shop for fruit and veg and have them in the kitchen.

I recommend having a variety of everything stocked in your fridge and freezer so that you never feel like you’re denying yourself; but at the same time, ensure that you have quick healthful snacks around.

If you like fruit, stock with fruit; if you need something to grab and go like if you travel for work, then find some protein snack bars…

If you want to make sure you have easy access to snacks, maybe chop some vegetables at the beginning of the week, or roast the vegetables so you have some easy meals.

Make the health promoting stuff easy and accessible.

Another way to support your health in the long-term is getting good sleep 7-8 hours if possible (obviously lifestyle allowing – I get that parents might find this harder). Lack of sleep means you’re more likely to reach for sugary high fat food, so getting good sleep is important.

You might also want to consider meal planning… I don’t fully meal prep, but I do plan my meals and shop weekly so that I know I have the things I need….

But again, work this around your lifestyle so that it fits!!

 

I hope that these tips can help you start thinking about healthy eating, but from a food freedom perspective and if you want to discover more then sign up to my (free) food freedom masterclass here.