5 Simple Changes for a Healthier Diet

5 Simple Changes for a Healthier Diet

Improving your eating habits is a great way to keep your heart healthier.

Choosing a healthy eating plan is a great way to lose weight, feel more energetic, and reduce your risk of disease. But it can sometimes be difficult to quit bad eating habits cold turkey, or to know where to start changing your diet. Consider some of the following tips for adapting to your new way of life — trying one or two a week until you've completed your diet overhaul.

If you now eat one or two vegetables a day, add a serving at lunch and another at dinner.
If you don't eat fruit now or have only juice at breakfast, add a serving to your meals or have it as a snack.

Gradually increase your use of fat-free and low-fat dairy products to three servings a day. For example, drink milk with lunch or dinner, instead of soda, sugar-sweetened tea, or alcohol. Choose low-fat (1 percent) or fat-free (skim) dairy products to reduce your intake of saturated fat, total fat, cholesterol, and calories.

Read food labels on margarines and salad dressings to choose those lowest in saturated fat and trans fat. Some margarines are now trans-fat-free.

Treat meat as one part of the whole meal, instead of the focus:

Limit meat to 6 ounces a day (2 servings) — that's all you need. (A single 3-ounce serving is the size of a deck of cards.)
If you now eat large portions of meat, cut them back gradually — by a half or a third at each meal.

Include two or more vegetarian-style (meatless) meals each week.
Increase servings of vegetables, rice, pasta, and dry beans in meals. Try casseroles and pasta, and stir-fry dishes, which have less meat and more vegetables, grains, and dry beans.