My 3 Guidelines for Eating
Google any form of “nutrition guidelines” and you’ll find way more than 3 recommendations for how to live a healthy lifestyle. Why do I only follow 3? In reality, I follow way more than this. I’ve had years of learning what is healthy and building habits that make healthy eating automatic. But when I started out, I stuck to these 3 guidelines that enabled me to eat a balanced diet without over-complicating things.
If you read my story, you’ll remember that I went through many different diets and yo-yo’ed with my health for a bit before finding balance. During my freshman summer in college, I went back and forth between eating really healthy, mostly vegan foods, to eating complete junk. When I went back to school in the fall, I decided to be serious about my health and do a 21-day healthy eating challenge that I found on Pinterest. During this challenge, I ate no:
White sugar of any kind (yes, even in tomato sauce)
Refined grains (no white flour or white rice)
Corn or potato chips
Any other highly-processed foods
Even though the no sugar part was really hard, I probably only cheated once or twice. I felt so good after the three weeks that I decided to keep it going. I got a little more relaxed as time went on but out of this challenge I developed my 3 principles that I now stick with 90% of the time. These are super, super easy guidelines. You will start feeling better immediately if you start implementing these, especially if your diet is less-than-ideal at the moment. You’ll feel even better if you do a 21-day challenge like I did, but if that is intimidating, at least start out with following these 3 guidelines for 2 out of 3 meals a day and work your way up to sticking with them 18 out of 21 meals per week.
Disclaimer: Please know that this is just what I do for me and I came up with these guidelines on my own. Even though they are backed up by medical research, you should still seek out professional advice before making any drastic changes to your diet. (But for real though, these guidelines are so easy that no physician is going to tell you not to follow them.)
Without further ado, here are my 3 healthy eating guidelines:
Cut Out Sugary and Diet Drinks
I will make a whole separate post about this, but in summary, there are two problems with sugary and diet drinks: 1) they contain enough calories to count as a small meal yet they don’t make you feel full, and 2) they are chemically detrimental to your health.
I fully believe that our excess consumption of soda and sugary caffeinated beverages has led to the obesity pandemic we see today. If we cut out sugary drinks, we could lower our daily caloric intake from anywhere between 140-1000 calories! Guys, that’s like eating one less meal per day!
Even if weight loss isn’t your goal, sugar still has majorly negative effects on your body. Fructose, one of the main molecules in table sugar, in processed in your liver much like ethanol, leading to the same chronic conditions like fatty liver disease and Type 2 Diabetes. NCBI writes about this while wittingly calling fructose, “alcohol without the buzz.”
Diet drinks, even though they don’t have any calories, are just as chemically dangerous as sugar, and just as fattening. Read this article by Harvard Health Blog, and this article by Dr. Osborne.
In my opinion, there are so many better ways to intake calories than by drinking them. But if you have an affinity to beverages, I recommend making your own coffee, like I did with my Honey Lavender Latte, or trying something like kombucha or Trim Health Mama’s Good Girl Moonshine. They are super good for you and curb your cravings for carbonated drinks!
2. Choose Whole Grains
When I was navigating college life and the campus food options, I realized you can usually find a whole grain substitute for every refined grain option. Subway has wheat buns. Chipotle has brown rice. Einstein Bagel Bros has wheat bagels. Did you know you can even get a Chick-fil-A sandwich on a wheat bun if you ask for it? With our country constantly getting more health-conscious, there are almost always healthy alternatives to our favorite foods so don’t let inaccessibility be your excuse. Now if you know anything about our food industry you’ll know that just because a bread is labeled “wheat,” doesn’t mean it’s 100% whole wheat. It truly would be better to opt for a salad when you’re eating out (which should be seldom). But if you’re in college or on the go a lot, try to choose whole grains when you have the option. Following this rule also keeps you away from other fattening foods like cookies, cakes, and pastries, which are made with refined grains almost exclusively.
That being said, I still like to make my own cookies, pancakes, muffins, etc. just with whole wheat flour instead! I’ve found this rule to be very freeing for that reason. Yes, I still limit my baked goods (and sugar) intake, but I don’t feel restricted from ever having a cookie again because I know I can always make my own as long as I’m not using refined grains!
3. Eat a Fruit or Vegetable with Every Meal
This one is easy when you consider raisins in your oatmeal as your fruit or lettuce on your cheeseburger as your vegetable. I guess I should call this rule “eat a serving of fruit or vegetables with every meal” but how much is a serving? I decided not to complicate it and just say, “If I have a good amount (a palm-size) of fruits or vegetables with every meal, I’m good.” The USDA 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines recommends that people should average about 2½ cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit per day. Some days I have way more than this, other days I have way less than this. My husband’s rule is “Make at least one good meal choice a day.” And by “good” he means good. Like a huge honkin’ salad with lots of fruit and homemade dressing. He honestly eats “good” with every meal but he feels better about eating just eggs in the morning if he’s going to have a salad for lunch. For me, I find it simpler to consistently have some produce with every meal so I don’t “forget” to have one good meal. Again, this is just what we do and we’re still on the journey of continually improving our diet. The main point is that if you keep eating healthy simple, you spend less brainpower on food, which means you can spend more brainpower on the Lord!
So there it is, I hope these simple guidelines give you ideas for how you can eat healthfully without overthinking it. Maybe you can make your own guidelines! Or maybe you can take the challenge of holding to this very strictly for 3 weeks and seeing how you feel! At any rate, remember that the Lord is pleased when you make wise decisions to take care of the miraculous body He made for you. Honor Him with your eating, but remember that eating isn’t everything! Keep it simple, and don’t worry about it. In all that you, do it for the glory of the Lord!