Many people don't know where to start when it comes to healthy eating. If you do not have a nutrition degree or are otherwise highly educated in the science of healthy eating, it can be challenging to sift through the noise and figure out how to eat healthy.

From bone broths, to vegan diets, to fasting, many people aren’t sure what steps to take towards eating healthier. How can you, with all the opinions and confusion about the latest trends in dieting?

As a qualified nutritionist, I am here to help— and to give you a wake-up call! In reality, most people can take a few steps to bring them HUGE strides towards eating healthier, and I bet you are one of them! You and I know, there is always room for improvement!

Here are three steps that EVERYONE should take to eat healthier, more balanced meals. Take these three easy steps at every meal and wow, do you hear that? No more noise, just a healthier diet!

Step 1: Start With Protein

Besides being REALLY important for bodily functions that directly impact your health, protein is key to feeling satisfied and beating cravings.

Protein is a large macromolecule that your body takes a lot of time to breakdown and digest. Because your body works for hours to digest protein, eating enough quality protein will make you feel full for hours.

More about this in a minute —but let’s absorb this critical belief: Feeling satisfied for hours is key to your healthy eating success.

In addition to keeping you full, protein helps balance your blood sugar. Since protein takes a while to digest, any other foods you eat at the same time digest more slowly, including foods high in carbohydrates.

Since carbohydrates spike your blood sugar, protein can slow down the carbohydrate effect and help your balance blood sugar. Balanced blood sugar leads to a stable mood, stable energy levels, and a stable appetite, while unbalanced blood sugar wreaks havoc on your body making you feel grumpy, exhausted, and ravenous for unhealthy foods.

When your appetite experiences the normal ebbs and flows that come with satiety and balanced blood sugar, you are more likely to make healthy choices about what to eat. Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t some of your worst, most unhealthy eating decisions occur when you feel cranky, tired, and hungry?

If keeping your appetite in check and giving you stable blood sugar isn’t enough, protein does not store easily as fat in your body! Very little of protein’s smaller parts can be used by your body for energy, so excess energy does not get stored on your body as fat.

Note: I am about to share some of my favorite healthy foods that have passed the nutrition, versatility, and three steps test! To make this as easy as possible for you, I created a healthy foods shopping list in an easy-to-use format. I also included grocery items for a bonus step that will complete healthy meal planning for you! Check it out below!

Healthy Protein Options

As with anything, there are better choices to make when it comes to eating protein for good health. Some of my favorite proteins, based on everything I know about nutrition (which is a LOT), include:

• Wild, Alaskan sockeye salmon, farmed steelhead trout, cold-smoked sockeye salmon, canned sardines (BPA-free can), low-mercury canned tuna (BPA-free can) such as skipjack or chunk light

  • Bonus points for incorporating canned (in BPA-free can) salmon or sardines with bones. The bones in canned fish dissolve easily, and you don’t really notice them, but they contribute impressive amounts of calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, minerals that are important to your body.

• Organic and or pastured chicken and turkey (ground or whole pieces)

  • Bonus points for incorporating bone-in chicken or turkey in stews, soups, or crock-pot dishes. Bones are filled with incredible nutrients and this boneless, skinless nonsense is not how we were meant to exclusively experience poultry.

• Grass-fed bison and beef and pastured lamb from New Zealand or Australia

  • Bonus points for making game meats, such as elk or venison, a part of your diet. Wild game meat is leaner and comes from more muscular, active, and nutritious animals.

• Organic, pastured eggs

  • Bonus points for sourcing eggs that are also high in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 eggs mean that the chickens that laid the eggs ate a diet that made their eggs richer in omega-3 fatty acids. Check your grocery store shelves or ask your local farmer about eggs that are high in omega-3 fatty acids.

• Collagen peptides from grass-fed beef

  • I am newer to collagen peptides (a supplement similar to protein powder), and I don’t have enough experience with them to tell you that collagen peptides have changed my life. However, I can tell you that I believe in the benefits of collagen and I currently incorporate collagen peptides into my clients’ and my diet to boost protein and of course, collagen. I am amazed at how well I can disguise collagen peptides in any dish from eggs, to muffins, to smoothies and pancakes!

• Pea-based or hemp-based protein powder

  • Personally, I stay away from whey protein. I believe whey is difficult to digest, inflammatory, and bloating (at least to a good chunk of people, including myself). I use a vanilla-flavored pea protein powder. It works great in my green smoothies with a little mango or banana, spinach, almond butter, and coconut milk or in my blueberry smoothies that I make with almond milk, enough blueberries for a deep purple color, and cashew butter (you could use peanut butter as an alternative).

• Sprouted quinoa, lentils, or mung beans

  • While lower in protein than meat, poultry, and fish, I love that sprouted quinoa, lentils, and mung beans are more nutritious (including higher in protein) than regular quinoa, lentils, and mung beans. Studies show that sprouting grains and beans deactivate many of the antigens in grains and beans that can inhibit the absorption of certain vitamins and minerals. You can sprout your own grains with some water and a jar, or you can buy already sprouted varieties.

• Organic nuts and nut butters (no added oils or sugar)

  • Nuts and nut butters are relatively low in protein compared to the other options I listed, but they make a great addition to a meal or a snack that could use a little more protein!

I just listed my favorite proteins based on years on experience, research, and a formal nutrition education. Remember to incorporate quality protein into every meal. Choose a few proteins that you enjoy and make them part of every meal or snack. Experiment with protein quantities and pay attention to what gives you satiety.

Note: I know that some of the protein options I recommend are expensive. I always recommend that you buy the best quality protein (and other food) that you can afford. However, don’t feel discouraged if you can’t afford organics all the time. Following my three steps are an amazing foundation to a healthy diet, organics or not! Check out my blog post about eating healthy on a budget to help you afford more of the healthiest foods for your body. Subscribe here, so that you don’t miss future blog posts!

Step 2: Add Healthy Fats

Contrary to the beliefs of the 80s and 90s, making fat part of your diet is one of the best things that you can do for your health! Besides helping control your appetite and making you feel full (just like protein!), fat makes foods more palatable, helps you absorb certain vitamins and minerals, gives your skin a healthy glow, helps balance your hormones, and much more!

If you eat animal proteins, chances are that these proteins provide a decent dose of fat to your diet. Fatty fish, like salmon, trout, tuna, and sardines are full of healthy fats that are important for your health. Grass-fed bison or beef, game meats, eggs, pork, and dark meat from chicken and turkey also provide a substantial amount of fat. Skinless chicken and turkey breasts, most white fish, and shrimp provide less fat and tend to be more lean.

If your meals are higher in fatty or moderately fatty meats, you will not need to add too many extra healthy fats to your meals. But if your proteins mostly consists of chicken breast and shrimp (or other lean proteins), you will need to add more healthy fats to make your meals balanced.

As I suggested with protein, experiment with different meals to figure out how much and what fats satisfy you and balance your appetite for hours.

Healthy Fat Options

Some of my favorite healthy fats (besides those found in fish, poultry, and meat) after years of sifting through all the nutrition noise, include:

• Avocados

  • I have a love affair with avocados! They are creamy, rich, filling, versatile—what’s not to love! I use avocados at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because they go with everything. At breakfast, I eat avocados with scrambled, over-medium, or hard boiled eggs. I have even started adding avocado to my spinach and mango smoothies, which helps create a rich, thick, consistency and subtle flavor. For lunch or dinner, I’ll often add avocado to salads, veggie and meat dishes, or, in tonight’s case, to soup… Thai chicken coconut soup, to be exact!

• Cold pressed avocado oil, organic virgin coconut oil, organic extra virgin olive oil, and grass-fed ghee or butter

  • In addition to the oils listed above, I really like using a pure cooking oil spray. I used to stay completely away from cooking sprays because they usually contain low-quality oils and other nasty ingredients. Recently, I discovered a few pure oil sprays that I like. For cooking anything in a muffin tin (which for me is usually some kind of almond flour muffin or an egg dish), pure avocado oil spray is unbeatable!

• Organic nuts, nut butters, seeds, and seed butters

  • While nuts and nut butters do contain some protein, they provide more value in terms of fat. In addition to healthy fats, many nuts provide minerals that are hard to obtain from other foods. Some of my favorite nut and seed choices include organic Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, almond butter, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, tahini (sesame seed paste), raw cashew butter… really all of them!

So, add a little fat to your meals when you eat fattier proteins, and add a little more fat to your meals when you eat leaner proteins. Whether you add a little oil to sautéed vegetables, an avocado to your salad, or nut butter to your smoothie, choose your favorite, reliable, versatile, healthy fats to incorporate into every meal.

Step 3: Eat a LOT of Vegetables

I can list 100+ reasons to eat vegetables, but trust me, when I say, that many of the secrets to good health lie in eating vegetables. From fighting cancer, to healthy skin, to digestion, vegetables do it all! In addition, back to the blood sugar conversation, many vegetables (not all of them) are low in carbohydrates and almost all whole vegetables are high in fiber. In general, vegetables will provide satiety without spiking your blood sugar when combined with adequate protein and fat.

I don’t agree with philosophies that restrict certain vegetables from the diet because most vegetables are nutritional powerhouses! However, if you only eat root vegetables, such as potatoes, beets, and carrots and your other favorite vegetables include beans, corn, and peas, then you are really missing out on kale, spinach, cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, cucumber (and the list goes on)! Moral of the story: You shouldn’t just eat the starchy vegetables.

So, what does “a LOT of vegetables” look like? When I cook for my clients or my family, I aim to incorporate at least two cups of vegetables in every meal. If I know a vegetable is going to cook down a lot (for example, spinach), I’ll even double the amount of vegetables. Honestly, most of your plate, bowl, or other eating surface should be covered with vegetables. Luckily, for you and me, vegetables pair excellently with protein and fat!

Healthy Vegetable Options

I LOAD my clients’ and my family’s meals with as many farm-fresh, organic vegetables as possible. Some of my favorites include:

• Arugula

• Broccoli

• Cauliflower

• Kale

• Chard

• Bok Choy

• Mustard greens

• Brussels sprouts

• Purple cabbage

• Sweet potatoes (or yams)

• Kabocha squash (in my opinion, the most delicious squash EVER)

• Butternut squash

• Mushrooms

• Zucchini

• Green beans

• Spring peas

• Asparagus

• Radishes

So, always LOAD lots of vegetables on your plate! There are so many ways to incorporate veggies into your meals, so get creative and have fun discovering your favorite vegetables.

I know that all of these ingredients are a lot to remember, so make sure to get my healthy foods shopping list to make these three steps for meal planning easy-peasy!

How to Eat Healthy (In Case You

Missed It The First Time)

Do you feel like you know how to eat healthy yet?

Follow my three steps to (1) incorporate quality proteins, (2) add healthy fats, and (3) eat LOTS of vegetables in every meal, and you will feel healthier!

Tune out what you hear about fad diets and the nutritional noise. Use my three steps and your “start” will look like other people’s “middle” of a healthy eating journey.

If you want to make things really easy, try my favorite (based on years of nutrition and culinary experience) choices for quality proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables. If you follow my three steps and choose to base your diet on my favorite proteins, fats, and vegetables, you will build a strong foundation for a healthy diet!

Note: I know that some of the foods I suggested are expensive. If you can’t buy organic, or grass-fed, or whatever else, just get the next best thing. I really want to help you eat the best quality ingredients, even if you feel nervous about spending more money on food. Check out my how to eat healthy on a budget blog post that outlines some of the most affordable, high-quality foods. Subscribe to my newsletter to catch all future blog posts on affording the healthiest ingredients for your body.

Don’t forget that I have created a healthy foods shopping list to make eating healthy and meal planning easier for you. The shopping list includes ingredients for a bonus step 4 that gives you the final tool for planning healthy, delicious meals.

Note: Notice how I didn’t mention what not to eat. You should eat the kinds of foods I suggested (and no extra processed stuff, extra sugar, etc.) 90 percent of the time. Even when you “cheat,” the other 10 percent of the time, try to follow my three steps. Trust me, there are plenty of ways to make a meal that contains protein, fat, and vegetables a little more special and indulgent.

Did you like this blog post? Receive notifications of new blog posts, free resources, and food relationship programs by subscribing to Rethink Nourishment. Do you want more help on how to make healthy eating work for your life? Contact me, I would love to help you on your food journey.