All too often people get caught up in the ‘all or nothing’ approach to nutrition and think that if you aren’t eating perfectly, there’s no point. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anything you eat, do and think, that is better than you did yesterday, will help you move forward with your goals. It’s about ‘better’ not ‘perfect’. Below are some simple strategies to help you eat better, and continue to make better choices, to help you lean up and improve your overall health.

Food Spectrum:
I like to put food on a spectrum. The far left we have ‘worst’ and the far right we have ‘best’.

This is your food spectrum (can use this for anything really). When you are considering something to eat, think about where it sits on the spectrum versus what you would normally choose. For example, if you would normally eat a McDonalds’ burger and you feel like a burger, choosing one from say ‘Grill’d’ is a ‘better’ option since it is made with grass fed beef, moving you closer to the ‘best’ side. If you took it one step further and made your own burger with fresh ingredients and grass fed minced meat, that would sit even closer to the ‘best’ side. If you then also replaced the bread bun with say lettuce leaves, this would boost you completely over to the ‘best’ side.

Let’s look at fish from a fish’n chip shop. Choosing a battered fried fish would have you closer to the left  of the spectrum, whereas swapping it for a grilled fish would boost you over to the right side of the spectrum.

Make a list of all the food that are your ‘go to’ foods. Then beside each see if you can find a better alternative, boosting it over to the right hand side of the spectrum.

Below are some more examples of better choices:

·        Swap fruit yoghurt with natural yoghurt and fresh berries

·        Swap lollies for fresh berries

·        Swap cookies with rice cakes

·        Swap cupcakes with savory egg muffins

·        Swap milk chocolate with 75%+ dark chocolate

·        Swap commercially farmed meat for free range and/or grass fed

·        Swap from eating sandwiches to eating just the filling

·        Swap sugar for stevia

·        Swap canola oil or vegetable oil,  for coconut oil or ghee

·        Swap processed fast food, for home made option

·        Swap deep fried lemon chicken, for stir fried chicken and vegetables

·        Swap thick sauces full of thickeners and sugars, with coconut aminos

·        Swap high mercury fish like flake with low mercury fish such as salmon

·        Swap fast food for a BBQ Chicken