If you want to eat healthier, it starts by choosing the right ingredients. You don’t have to subscribe to the myth that you have to adopt a wildly restive diet or make massive changes to eat better meals; you simply need a few critical cooking hacks. In this article, Buffalo, New York fitness instructor Christopher Lee takes a look at some of those hacks so that you can ramp up your nutrition all while cutting back on the calories.
Simplify With Roasting
When it comes to putting together a nutritious weeknight meal, frying and sauteing ingredients are extremely popular. The problem is, you can end up adding much more oil into your dish than is actually necessary.
Rather than dousing your food with extra fats that come with oil, you can substitute the method for which you cook your ingredients. An easy way to do this is by roasting your dinner. This can be done on a simple sheet pan in the oven—just toss all your ingredients on one tray and wait! Not only will this deliver a nutritious meal without sacrificing much flavor, but you’ll also have fewer dishes to deal with later!
Permission to Sauté Veggies
If you have trouble eating veggies, you’re not alone. While eating vegetables raw is, in most cases, the healthiest way to consume this vital portion of the food pyramid, that’s not always the tastiest way to go about it.
Giving your veggies a light sauté will allow you to retain most of the health benefits of vegetables. Boiling, blanching, and other methods tend to suck out nutrients (as well as leave the veggies rather tasteless)! Make the most of the nutrients available to you, and just give them a quick browning in the pan.
Back Off From Bread
While there is no shame in permitting yourself bread every once in a while, finding ways to cut back can only do you good. Try making open-faced sandwiches or replacing a dinner roll with a more productive carb.
Bread is best enjoyed when it’s more scarce, anyway. As you let go of bread, you’ll find that you may not have needed so much of it in the first place!
Introduce Whole Grains
When it comes to eating a balanced and healthy diet, fiber intake plays a huge role. Fiber works to normalize bowel movements, helps to maintain bowel health, lowers cholesterol levels, controls blood sugar levels, and contributes toward achieving a healthy weight as you’ll feel more full faster.
Replacing traditional carbohydrates with whole-grain products is an easy step you can take to get more fiber in your diet. Swap out buns, tortillas, pasta, pizza dough, crackers, and more! You’re unlikely to notice much of a difference in taste, and you can be ensured that you are getting your recommended 20-40 grams of fiber per day (depending on your weight and gender).
Make these simple switches for more successful and healthy meals! Better nutrition can be yours with easy adjustments to your diet.
About Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee is a certified fitness trainer and instructor from Buffalo, New York. Lee specializes in creating workout plans for clients that make them look and feel more athletic while emphasizing a healthy diet and lifestyle, so clients reach their fitness goals faster and pain-free. When Christopher Lee is not working with his clients, he can be found at a hot yoga class, practicing martial arts, or spending time with his friends and family in Buffalo.
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