Tips for healthy eating | BHF – British Heart Foundation

Want to change your eating habits and improve your health, but not sure where to start? Our Senior Dietitian Victoria Taylor shares simple tips for eating well.

Whether you have tried to make changes and slipped back into old habits, or are coming to healthy eating for the first time, it can feel hard to know what to do or where to start.

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What are your health goals?

First, think about what you’re trying to achieve by changing what you eat. You might be looking to do any or all of these:

• Lose weight
• Feel better generally
• Lower your cholesterol level
• Reduce your blood pressure
• Eat more of something (like fibre, or fish, or plant-based protein)

That way you can match your changes to your goal. For example, drinking more water is a healthy habit, which can help you feel better if you’re dehydrated at the moment – but if you’re trying to reduce your cholesterol levels, it won’t make a difference.

Being specific about your goals can also help you to keep an eye on whether the changes you’ll make are achieving what you want them to. If you want to eat more healthily, but don’t know what to change, keep a diary over a few days to get a picture of what you are eating, how much, and when. Use this to help you to prioritise what you would like to change and where to start as well as what you feel is achievable.

Generally, a healthy balanced diet should be roughly a third fruit and veg, a third starchy carbohydrates and a third protein (including beans, lentils, fish, lean meat and low-fat dairy products or dairy alternatives).

Looking at the Eatwell guide or learning more about a balanced diet can also help you identify what foods to eat more or less of to improve your diet.

How to start eating healthily and stick to it

You might feel overwhelmed by the number of changes you need to make. Remember, you don’t need to change everything at once. You might be more successful in the long run by taking things more slowly and just making a couple of small changes at a time, as it will be easier to stick to. Don’t try to make changes that you won’t …….

Source: https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/nutrition/healthy-eating-tips