Enjoy Better Health When You Eat Whole Foods

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We all want to enjoy better health, no? Well, the easiest path to better health is through nutrition. When you follow a predominately whole foods diet, also referred to as clean eating or green eating, you can certainly achieve this.

A whole foods diet is plant-based. You will be eating more vegetables, along with healthy fats and lean meat and poultry. And there are no strict guidelines to follow.

When you eat whole, you won’t have to measure carbs, calories, and fat grams. As long as you eat plant-based food minimally prepared or cooked, you will enjoy many health benefits.

Studies show this type of eating can improve the health of your skin and hair. You lower the possibility that you will develop heart disease and several cancers. Your brain benefits in a number of ways, as well.

And you can finally lose that stubborn fat and excess weight that refuses to disappear.

A study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston showed a direct correlation between high plant protein diets and significantly longer lifespans. Those who enjoyed a high animal protein diet didn’t fare as well. This particular study was one of many.

Following a whole foods eating plan can make you physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy. Even though it is very easy to follow, there are a few common mistakes whole food eaters encounter.

The most common mistake beginners make is self-imposed; they are too strict about what they can and cannot eat

A Whole Foods Diet Is Not an All or Nothing Proposition

If you are like most people, you probably eat a lot of processed foods. Even though you put foods in your body considered healthy, many of those foods contain preservatives and other manufactured ingredients that are not good for you.

When the typical person eats mainly highly processed food, they lose. The natural goodness of that food is removed and replaced with genetically modified organisms (GMO) and other ingredients.

None of these modifications are real food.

Suppose you are this typical person and you decide to give yourself the gift of better health and longevity, which a whole foods diet can deliver. Then good for you! After all, you are the only person on the planet responsible for your health and wellness.

When it comes right down to it, you are the one who decides what you eat and what you don’t eat. We commend you for choosing to boost your mental and physical health by eating right.

Unfortunately, this is where most run into trouble when switching to whole foods.

Imagine that you start with this dedication to eating green, natural, whole foods. Most people who adopt this eating plan for the first time are incredibly focused and become too restrictive about what they eat.

Since they don’t give their bodies enough time to embrace eating minimally processed foods, the process seems like a chore. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.

People switching to whole foods go from eating processed foods 90% of the time to eating fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and lean meats 100% of the time. Your body is not ready for this drastic change.

The foods you have been regularly eating have programmed your mind, taste buds, and body to adapt to those foods. If you have been eating mainly processed foods for decades, don’t be super restrictive when you change to whole foods.

Start slowly in the beginning; go into this gradually.

A Few Baby Steps Can Help You Walk 100 Miles

Start this journey slowly and methodically. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. The longest journey begins with a single step; you eat an elephant one bite at a time, so on and so forth. You get the idea. Start with baby steps.

Aside from reprogramming your body and your mind, you also need to change your external eating habits. What you and your environment look like when you are eating clean, fresh, healthy whole foods is vastly different from the experience of eating highly processed foods.

Let’s look at someone trying to quit smoking as an example.

Physical actions are the hardest for smokers to overcome when they try to kick the habit. Sitting down with a cup of coffee is a physical cue that gets the body and mind ready to smoke.

And there are other actions such as tapping a cigarette down to make the tobacco denser and keeping a pack of cigarettes in a dedicated place.

So a smoker must overcome physical habits as well as the internal desire of the body to smoke. The same is true when you switch to a healthy whole foods diet.

Begin by simply replacing one unhealthy meal each day with a whole foods meal. Do this religiously for a week or two. Then commit to two meals a day for a few weeks. Maybe you will eat nothing but whole foods every other day for your first month.

Whichever way you choose to approach this beneficial and healthy way of eating, start slowly. Eventually, you can ramp up the process as your body begins to adjust. In this way, you will avoid one of the most common mistakes made by beginners to the whole foods way of life, an avoidable mistake that leads to failure.

Keep in mind, when it comes to your health, failure is not an option.