Exercising regularly goes a long way in keeping fit and healthy. However there’s one more place where you need to keep your weight on your mind other than the gym floor, and that place is the kitchen. Ever heard the phrase, ‘abs are made in the kitchen?’ well it’s certainly true for anyone looking to tone up and define the shape of their body.
One of the easiest ways to watch what you eat is to be more considerate about what you are putting into your body. Clean eating seems to have exploded onto the nutrition and exercise scene this year, but it’s not as hard and as hardcore as you may think.
All natural
The main principles are simply, eating natural foods means that you are giving your body all the nutrients that it naturally needs, without excess sugar or fats that are more often than not added into processed foods.
You can go one step further in this by choosing whole foods, that are fresh and organic, this means that you know that the food that you are choosing to eat is packed full of the nutrients that your body needs to be healthy.
Secondly, always choose unrefined food over refined food. It might be hard to do this all the time, but you can certainly up your intake of whole grains such as brown rice and quinoa along with add more beans and legumes into your diet. Sugar is also worth considering too, we need sugar in our diet but that doesn’t have to come from a packet of sweets. Clean sugars can include foods like honey or maple syrup or fruits.
Balanced plate
At mealtimes take a quick scan of your plate, what does it contain? Is it a balanced mix of proteins, carbohydrates and fats? We often do well with the carbs and the fats but when it comes to healthy eating many of us fall short of the daily protein intake. This is one of the most important ingredients in a meal, as protein builds up muscles, along with helping keep a lid on your cravings.
If you snack on protein throughout the day you will soon find that you’re feeling much fuller for longer long with less cravings for sugary snacks.
Watch out
Keep an eye out for excess fats, salt and sugars in your food. This is much easier if you are already eating all natural foods as most of these comes from processed foods and are added in to add flavour or to help preserve then. Natural foods tend to be low in fats, sugars and salts, so the more clean eating you practice, the less you will have to worry about these.
Finally, in order to keep in tip-to shape, make sure you are getting enough exercise in, whether it’s power walking to work, running over your lunch break, or heading to the weights section in your gym to pump yourself up. Exercise is the perfect partner for a clean and natural plate.
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