How to Maintain Your New Year Health Kick & Still Enjoy Food

by Alli

Food, glorious food. It plays a crucial role in many aspects of our lives, influencing our health and image with huge impacts. However, it’s important not to forget that eating can change our moods, enhance social occasions, and generally make us happier people. While it’s great that you’ve used January as the perfect time to embrace healthier habits, retaining a sense of enjoyment is vital. Otherwise, you will inevitably give it up within a few short weeks.

Many people worry that the two ideas are mutually exclusive, but that needn’t be the case. As with anything in life, finding the right balance is everything. Here are 10 simple, practical tips that will enable you to maintain your New Year health kick.

Maintain Your New Year Health Kick

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1. Grow Your Own Produce   

When you buy fresh foods from the supermarket, they often go bad within a matter of days. This can encourage you to choose alternatives simply in a bid to reduce your waste. But when you have an endless supply growing in the garden or on the kitchen side, the healthy route becomes more natural.

There are many guides to growing fruit and veg both online and in books. Meanwhile, creating cute planters will enable you to brighten up the home while producing herbs. With those key ingredients at hand, creating sauces without resorting to pre-made sauces will feel easier than ever. Frankly, you’d be amazed at how much sugar is hidden in many of those jars.

20 Unique DIY Planters

Above all else, fresh foods are far better tasting than those that have been transported to the store and then your home.

2. Invest In A Crock Pot

Most people find that eating healthy homemade meals is just as enjoyable as the quick cheat meals. The main hurdle, however, comes from the process of preparing those recipes. We live in a hectic world, and spending hours in the kitchen simply doesn’t fit around our schedules. With the right kitchen gadgets, it is possible to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Crock Pots are a particularly good time-saver. They allow you to prepare meals either in the morning or night before and then allow those meals to cook throughout the day while you do other things. With so many great recipes available at Country Living, life never felt so easy. This route will often save money too.

There are plenty of other kitchen gadgets and tools that enable you to reduce the time spent completing those cooking tasks. From now on, your focus can stay with enjoying the food rather than preparing it.

Invest in a Crock Pot - New Year Health Kick

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3. Change Cooking Oils

When cooking healthy meals, the ingredients used aren’t the only influential factor to consider. In truth, your decisions over cooking oils and similar features can make a world of difference. When you make smarter choices here, you’ll feel far less guilty about the cheat choices like a bowl of fries.

Swapping to the low-calorie sprays is a good option. Alternatively, using avocado oil and similar products can bring an extra taste to meals while aiding your health too. Just be careful not to make the wrong choices as USA Today found that coconut oil isn’t as good as people once thought. In fact, it could cause more damage than good.

Meanwhile, using an air fryer than a deep fat fryer can make cheat meals far less damaging. Better still, you’ll find that you’ll be able to truly taste the ingredients.

4. Upgrade The Taste Of Your Water

Increased levels of water consumption are crucial for any health plan. In truth, you should view two liters as a daily minimum. And you will probably find that it could be anywhere between three to five depending on location and activities. While we all appreciate the benefits that drinking more water can bring, it doesn’t change the fact that it can feel a little boring.

Soda streams are an option to make water more fun. However, most find that non-carbonated mineral water does the trick in the best way. Unfortunately, buying dozens of bottles each week is expensive and can harm the environment. Water purifiers from Big Berkey at Live Healthy soon solve this problem. This is easily one of the best steps you can take for increased health.

Drinking more water will aid your body in many ways. Drink a glass in the morning to kickstart your metabolism, and have another before meals to help control portion sizes. Combine this with switching to black coffees and green teas to drink yourself healthy without losing your sanity.

Drink More Water - New Year Health

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5. Seek Nutritional Supplements

Fuelling your body with all the nutrients it needs can be tough work. Thankfully, foods aren’t the only way to do it. Taking multivitamins and tablets can give you the nutritional boost needed to keep your body performing as it should. This is without the need to eat foods you dislike.

Those with an active lifestyle can think about using protein shakes and supplements to fuel workouts and recoveries. Not only is this one of the best way to maximize results in the gym, but it’s an easy way of having a daily treat. After all, most of those products are available in great tasting flavors such as vanilla, cookies, and chocolate.

On a separate note, taking this route can be beneficial for portion control and gradually shrinking your stomach in a positive manner.   

6. Go Nuts For Nuts

Nuts are a complicated factor to consider. They do contain a lot of calories and fat, albeit good fats, and must not be eaten in excess. As such, many people ignore them altogether. When consumed in healthy amounts, though, they can enhance your health and make you live longer.

There are many types of nuts on the market, and all have their pros and cons. A handful of walnuts each day can bring many rewards. Use them as a snack rather than heading straight to the cookie jar, and you should notice a major difference.   

Or if you want to treat yourself, create candied maple walnuts or other tasty goods. It’s still going to provide more benefits than working your way through the Twinkies and potato chips.

Eat More Walnuts for New Year Health Kick

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7. Get Creative

When incorporating a new healthy eating plan, there’s a strong chance that you’ll look to extend it to the whole family. It becomes cheaper, practical, and emotionally easier when you each have the support of the entire household. If you have young kids, making faces and fun designs encourages them to embrace healthy eating. But those creative instincts can help adults too.

You won’t want to make faces with your food. Still, a creative approach can help you lose the bread to turn bacon sandwiches into tasty and far healthier “bacon sushi.” Substituting pizzas for jacket potato pizzas or finding other ways to reduce bread and pasta intake will work wonders.

Aesthetically pleasing food always tastes nicer. You only need to visit a restaurant to realize this. Alternatively, you can turn eating into a social occasion by bringing ingredients to the table and building your own. That way, you all get to please individual taste buds too.

8. Prepare Your Lunches

Eating well at home is relatively easy as long as you don’t stock the cupboards with naughty goods. The real challenges come when you are out and about. As a busy worker, taking the quick and easy option on your lunch break can be the downfall. Whether it’s a Starbucks coffee and cake or a McDonald’s Big Mac meal doesn’t matter. Those decisions are undoing all the good work elsewhere.

Preparing your lunches will remove those distractions and temptations. Lunch prep at Sweet Peas and Saffron will get your creative juices flowing. Meanwhile, cooking leftovers when making your evening meal can have a huge impact when trying to avoid the dangers of work lunches.

This habit will also save money at a rapid rate. In turn, this should enable you to buy even better ingredients, meaning your meals will taste better than ever.   

Salad - New Year Heath

9. Switch Cocktails For Mocktails 

Adopting a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t stop you from having the odd treat. However, moderation is key. While it’s important to maintain a good social life, alcohol needn’t always be the option. Besides, when you leave getting tipsy for the best nights, you’ll learn to enjoy those moments more.

When hosting a party at home, creating some mocktails can be a fantastic solution. You’ll often find that the calories consumed are fewer. Moreover, most people find that their general consumption falls. Even so, you can still have a brilliant time with friends and family.

Perhaps most importantly, not getting drunk puts you in control. From avoiding naughty foods while drinking to preventing the hangover, those benefits are huge. On a separate note, being sober allows you to keep a closer eye on the home. 

Faux Pink Champagne - Cherry Margarita Mocktail with garnishes

10. Don’t Punish Yourself

Even with these tips, you will inevitably make mistakes from time to time. This could be due to celebrations, stress, or a host of other factors. As long as those wobbles won’t derail your progress, they can actually be a key factor for sustainability. Finding that balance suddenly feels like a realistic goal.

17 comments

robin rue January 18, 2018 - 7:21 am

I have been working SO hard at eating healthy this year and I love all of your helpful ideas. I should totally go buy some nuts to munch on as snacks.

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valmg @ Mom Knows It All January 18, 2018 - 8:16 am

You have some great suggestions. Slow cooking is a nice and easy way to make some really tasty dishes and not have to stand in the kitchen for ages.

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Amber Myers January 18, 2018 - 8:28 am

I like this! And I am a huge fan of nuts. I always have some nearby if hunger strikes. I try to never worry about what I eat so long as I can fit into my pants.

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Kelly Reci January 18, 2018 - 8:37 am

Yes, yes, and yes for the crock pot! It has helped me with my eating habits since I got one and totally saves time. Good luck to everyone for their healthy resolutions this year!

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Jeanettte January 18, 2018 - 9:01 am

These are definitely some great ideas! My crockpot is probably one of my favorite things to use. And I am very committed to eating healthier this year so these are some great tips.

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candy January 18, 2018 - 9:33 am

Totally agree on not punishing ourselves. Life changing to start eating healthy and moving more. Sometimes it is three steps forward and one step back. Never give up.

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Chubskulit Rose January 18, 2018 - 10:16 am

Food is my downfall in maintaining my fitness goal. I always drink water, that’s my main beverage and lemon is enough to upgrade it.

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Nikki January 18, 2018 - 10:34 am

We are planning to grow more of our own produce this year. I have a black thumb, but my mom lives with me and she can actually garden. I bought her all sorts of indoor gardening stuff so she can get started early this year.

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Rosemary Palmer January 18, 2018 - 10:57 am

I think we do pretty good on balancing the food. We don’t eat much red meat, not even weekly usually, but sometimes there’s just nothing better than a juicy hamburger or rib-eye steak. I wish I could have a garden but our backyard is so shady. I do a few containers.

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Tomi C January 18, 2018 - 11:19 am

We are all about smoothies in our house. The kids love them as a quick breakfast on the go and I love to mix up my protein shakes. Great way to sneak in some healthy veggies like kale, beets and spinach without the kids knowing.

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Kenya @ Kenya Rae January 18, 2018 - 3:02 pm

I try really hard to eat healthily and by and large we do. My problem is dessert. I loooove dessert.

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Sarah Bailey January 18, 2018 - 4:40 pm

These are some great tips, I love the idea of growing your own produce! That is such a great idea.

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Sarah Honey January 18, 2018 - 8:28 pm

Giving yourself a cheat day works for me! Also, seeing what you can swap out.

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Maureen @Scoops of Joy January 18, 2018 - 9:08 pm

Totally love your tips here! Small changes or swaps really can make a difference in our health. Now, I really wish I could have my own crockpot again 😀

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Sapphire Kharyzma January 18, 2018 - 9:25 pm

I enjoyed reading this! What great ideas, and they are all doable, so accountability should be easier 🙂

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Annemarie LeBlanc January 20, 2018 - 1:40 am

I should be eating more greens and snacking on nuts instead of those high sugar high sodium snacks. I have promised myself that I will be eating healthy starting this year. I know it will be difficult, but there is no other time to start changing my lifestyle than now. Thank you for these awesome tips.

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Terri Beavers January 20, 2018 - 9:49 am

I’ve been doing a couple of these, such a eating more nuts. My crock pot died on me so I’ve got to get a new one and I want a bigger one this time.

Reply

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