Health and fitness guru Laura Hulley has some no-fuss ways to implement healthier dietary habits.

In an ideal world, all of our meals would be prepared at home – fresh, healthy, delicious and wrapped in a bow. But this is not an ideal world, and it is unrealistic to think that every meal we consume will be nutritious and homemade. So, let’s talk about a realistic way to eat healthily.

By taking a straightforward approach, I will share some easy, no-fuss ways to implement better habits into your diet. When I use the word “diet”, I simply mean the foods that you currently eat. We are not referring to a fad or crazy eating regime.

Source healthier eating options out on the road

If you haven’t prepared a meal before heading out for the day, google available eating options along your path that day. Plan slightly ahead. Calling into whatever bakery or fast-food restaurant you stumble across is the easier option, but we can do better than that. Nutritious eateries are dotted all over the country. Make an effort to source them out.

Add, don’t remove

A lot of eating regimes involve removing foods or complete food groups from your diet, which typically ends up resulting in binge eating and going wild on the foods you’ve been depriving yourself of.

An alternative option is something called “crowding out”. Instead of removing and feeling deprived, you are actually adding foods. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but what you’re trying to do is add more nutritious foods to your diet so you feel less hungry for less nutritious foods.

Adding more fruit and vegetables to each meal, should make you feel fuller and less inclined to snack on that chocolate bar. You haven’t told yourself, “I can’t have that chocolate bar.” You have simply said, “I will eat more fruit and vegetables.” This simple mind-frame adjustment can hopefully help prevent the feeling of deprivation and binge eating.

Watch those portions

People bang on about portion sizes, and we are all a bit sick of hearing about it. Unfortunately, it significantly affects our health and weight goals. Being mindful of portions allows us to enjoy all the foods we would like without having to remove treats. There are plenty of guidelines regarding recommended serving sizes – they’re often written on food packaging. For example, a row of chocolate is considered a healthy serving size. If we are looking at a dinner plate, your meat portion should be roughly the size of your palm or a quarter of your plate; your vegetables should make up half the plate, and carbohydrates the final quarter. The variant here is obviously the size of your plate. Dinner plates tend to be huge by today’s standards, so be mindful of how large your plate is.

Make large quantities

They say, ’Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ – this also applies to eating. Meal prepping has become a massive part of the health and fitness industry, with global companies selling premade, microwaveable meals. But we can replicate this ourselves at home. It may seem daunting or like you don’t have enough time to spend hours meal prepping each week, but we can keep this low-key and simple.

For example, you are cooking dinner anyway, so there’s no harm in making enough for three or four dinners/portions. You could always take leftovers for your lunch the next day. This can apply to breakfast and lunches – you’re making that meal anyway, so you may as well make it in bulk and save yourself time in the long run. You don’t need to make complex meals with 50 ingredients and fill 40 containers with different options. Just ensure you have meals ready or at least organised in your head for the next day.

Control the alcohol consumption

Alcohol is a part of most people’s lives, whether it be a few cheeky beers on the weekend or a drink or two after work/with dinner. I understand that telling people not to consume alcohol is often unrealistic or unnecessary in the scheme of things. But it is something to be mindful of. You may think that a couple of beers every night after work is harmless, but if you have three beers a night for five nights, that’s 15 beers a week. It is best to be mindful of our drinking – when related to health and fitness goals, alcohol adds extra calories and may result in us feeling unmotivated to exercise the next day.

Instead of overwhelming yourself with complex eating regimes, look at what you’re currently doing and implement small and simple strategies to make positive changes. You will be amazed at how big a difference small steps make to overall health and wellbeing.