Trying to eat healthier can seem like a big undertaking. Take away the stresses with these 10 Principles to Healthy Eating from Real Fit Kitchen. These easy to follow guidelines are a realistic way to change your diet and lifestyle without completely disrupting your day to day life. Give them a try! You’ll soon be on your way to feeling healthy and strong.
Following are our ten principles that will work for everyone, no matter which eating pattern you choose to follow.
• Plant based—Make the majority of the foods you eat plant based. This is the number one thing you can do to improve your health and performance, and the health of the environment. Focus on eating fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, grains, spices, and teas. Consume fewer animal foods and eat more plants.
• Sustainable—Think local, peak, seasonal, and small scale, whenever possible. The more you support local farmers, the more we’ll be able to improve food quality as a community. Try to eat produce at the peak of its freshness. Look for farmer’s markets, local farms, or local products highlighted on grocery shelves. A community garden or window box of fresh herbs—that’s as local as you can get!
• Strong—Food should make you feel strong. If something makes you feel weak, tired, heavy, or sluggish, then it’s not the best choice for you. Let food work for you.
• Pure and Simple—Eat food in its simplest form. Choose an orange, not a bottle of orange juice. Have plain whole yogurt, not a flavored, low calorie yogurt. The less processed a food is, the more of it you can have.
• Colorful—Paint your plate. It’s that simple. Include as many vibrant colors as you can in each meal. If you tend to eat the same foods every day, try a different color combination. Make food grab your attention. It’s your masterpiece. Let color guide you.
• Consistent—Set a realistic routine so you can be consistent with healthy behaviors. Create an approach simple enough that you can do it on a daily basis. That might require regular food shopping or prepping food the night before so you’re ready for the next day.
• Balanced—Choose a variety of nutrients at each meal to help with portions, fullness, and overall nutrition balance. Too much protein? You’re probably crowding out another nutrient. Too many fruits? You could be eating too much sugar. Choosing to eat different nutrient proportions relative to your activity level is a key to balanced eating.
• Intuitive—There are simple ways to make better food choices without being overly focused on the nuances and numbers of nutrition. Add a cup of frozen vegetables to a soup. Grab a banana at the breakfast staff meeting. Toss some beans into a salad. Drink more water during the workday. Split a dessert with a friend. The more seamless and intuitive your choices are, the better it is for you. Eating with intention and mindfulness helps guide more intuitive choices. Think out loud, “How can I make this better?” and you’ll do just that.
• Yours, Not Theirs—The more you can cook, prepare, or flavor food yourself, the more control you have over what goes into it. Cook at home more often. When you’re eating at a restaurant, ask for food the way you want it: vegetables roasted with olive oil and a lemon wedge, salad dressing on the side, or fresh fruit for dessert.
• Real—Change your perspective. Look at the ingredients not at the nutrition facts, percentages, health claims, and endorsements. Avoid artificial sweeteners and colors. Skip anything marketed as light/lite, low fat, low sugar, diabetic, or carb friendly. Real food requires no health claims. We believe in balanced nutrition, not an all-or-nothing thinking. In our nutrition practices, the healthiest eaters are those who enjoy real food and respect it for its nourishment. They have active lifestyles but also realize the value of productive rest and relaxation.
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Upgrade your performance and diet. Get real and break free from the packaged bars and powders.
Admit it, your idea of sports nutrition needs an upgrade. Are you still reaching for low-fat cheese sticks and peanut butter bagels for pre-event meals? Let’s get real and break free from the packaged bars and powders.
Active people, fitness lovers and athletes need practical guidance and proper knowledge about nutrition. Real Fit Kitchen is just what you’re craving.
Nutrition experts Tara Mardigan and Kate Weiler prove that the foods, supplements and beverages, that many think are aiding performance, are actually hindering and can be easily replaced with healthy, real, clean food. For example:
– Instead of consuming chemical-laden and performance-hindering additives in packaged recovery drinks, make your own performance-boosting chocolate protein recovery drink.
– Replace liver-damaging pain-relief medications that dehydrate and disrupt electrolyte absorption, try a tart cherry juice smoothie.
– Substitute peanut butter laden with inflammatory trans fat and added sugar for muscle-rebuilding pecan cashew maca butter.
More nutritious than store bought products, Real Fit Kitchen provides 100 healthy meals, snacks, smoothies, and more, including new ingredients (like performance-enhancing raw cacao, turmeric, and chlorella) to upgrade anyone’s diet. Learn to make more efficient, cost-effective meals that your whole family will eat. Enjoy natural food, and replace sports nutrition unhealthy products that do not properly sustain an active lifestyle with delicious and easy recipes that the whole family will love.
“Finally–a cookbook that combines common sense, nutrition science, and a passion for delicious food! Kate and Tara’s recipes help us eat for an active, healthy, balanced life, with an emphasis on real, plant-based foods rather than highly processed bars and powders. I recommend this book to anyone looking for inspiration to create delicious, satisfying meals. I wish all of my patients would take this book to heart–the world would be a happier, healthier place!” – Dara Lee Lewis, M.D., FACC, instructor, Harvard Medical School and cardiologist, Lown Cardiovascular Center
“Tara and Kate are one of the greatest teams nutrition has ever seen. Their blockbuster playbook of recipes and eat-to-win advice is a must-read for anyone who wants to take care of their body. I learned a new fact on every page and will eat much better from now on because of it.” – Jon Meterparel, play-by-play voice of Boston College Football and Basketball on the IMG Sports Network and play-by-play talent, ONE World Sports TV Network
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