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In the past few years there’s been a resurgence of interest in healthy living and healthy. We all know most people don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables and that many people eat too much of the wrong things such as sugar, salt and fat. Due to ingrained habits, reversing this trend takes time and effort, but changing your own diet is an important place to start if you’re going to improve your health and your life.

One key to changing your diet is to change it in ways you’ll be able to live with for the rest of your life. Often a diet or lifestyle change fails because they’re difficult to follow once the initial excitement has worn off. So try making small, simple changes at first and before you know it, you’ll get to where you want to be.

When you start a healthy eating plan will depend on your specific goals. Many people start off by simply eating more fruits and vegetables. Others, especially those who’ve become addicted to a fast food diet, will require a radical change in the way they shop, cook, and eat.

Since healthy eating means different things to different people, it’s difficult to lay down a single healthy eating guide that’s right for everyone. A runner getting ready for a marathon has different nutritional needs than a factory worker who’s looking to lose a few pounds.

However, regardless of your goal, it’s important to eat a variety of foods, and to make smart choices when shopping, cooking and eating. Dining out can present special challenges, so you might want to familiarize yourself with the ingredients of the foods you order in your favorite restaurants.

Making healthy food choices means eating more of the good foods — vegetables, fruits, whole grains, etc. — and less of the bad foods, such as salt, sugar, fats and those all time favorites — hamburgers and pizza.

If you start by eating more high nutrition, low calorie foods you’re on your way to success. Fortunately the produce section of the local grocery store will contain many varieties of the foods you should be eating. Fruits and vegetables are almost always low in calories and fat, and they are generally very nutritious as well.

Variety is important to a healthy diet, so why not to sample lots of different fruits and vegetables on your first healthy eating shopping trip. Start with some of the fruits and vegetables you’ve always wanted to try but never gotten around to. For example, many people have never tasted asparagus, spinach or Brussels sprouts. While some love these foods and others hate them, you’ll never know unless you try them for yourself.

Foraging in this manner is a great way to introduce yourself to foods you’ve never tried before and a great way to try new things, with the added bonus that you just might discover a new favorite food while you’re at it.

Experimenting with cooking all these exotic fruits and vegetables is another great idea. There are a ton of healthy cooking recipes and cookbooks on the market, and a new cookbook can be a great motivator for healthy eating.

So remember, making your diet healthier doesn’t necessarily mean making a radical change. Simple changes such as trimming the excess fat off of a steak, or substituting nonfat yogurt for sour cream on your baked potato, can make a big difference to get you on the road to enjoying a healthier lifestyle.

In the long run, the simplest and easiest to follow changes are the ones that will matter most, since making easy changes means you’ll more likely be able to stick to them for the long run.

Healthier eating is a marathon, not a sprint.

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Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Visit his website at Get A Better Life Today.

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