Finding the balance

Eating healthily helps you to maintain a healthy weight and reduces your risk of many long term conditions, including high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

It isn't all about cutting out foods - its about eating a wide variety of foods in the right amounts to give your body what it needs. There are no single foods you must eat or menus you need to follow to eat healthily. All foods can be included in a healthy diet, you just need to make sure you get the right balance.

At Get Healthy we can support you to improve your diet. Our simple online tool can help you to reach your goals and maintain your lifestyle changes. Sign up and Get Healthy today!

How We Can Help

Our Get Healthy Coaches will work with you on a one-to-one basis, setting specific goals that are unique to you and your lifestyle. You will be able to work with them over six appointments held in one of our many community venues; you get to choose when, where and what time. Your Get Healthy Coach will provide you with simple and understandable advice to make small changes that deliver big results. Eating healthily has many other benefits; you may find you sleep better, have more energy and better concentration - and this all adds up to a healthier, happier you!

Start the Day Right

Many of us are missing out on the most important meal of the day. We tend to choose breakfast options that are high in sugar or fat, or chose to not have anything at all. Eating breakfast gives us the energy we need to get through to lunchtime and can help us to cut down on snacking during the day. In fact, people who eat breakfast are more likely to maintain a healthy weight than people who don't. Check out the link below to the Change4life Meal Mixer for healthy breakfast ideas. Get the facts on Sugar Swaps.

Cut Down on the Sweet Stuff

We really do eat too much sugar: an average of 140 teaspoons per person per week. Our love of sugar can mean that many of us are getting too many calories, which is one of the causes behind our expanding waistlines.

Most of us could do with eating less sugar, particularly added sugar. But many habits, especially ones we like, are so hard to kick.The culprits are the foods high in added sugar such as fizzy drinks. They contain a lot of calories but few other nutrients.

• For breakfast try swapping the sugary cereal for plain porridge, wholewheat biscuits or plain shredded whole grain
• For drinks, try swapping fizzy drinks for water or no added sugar drinks.
• For pudding, swap chilled desserts or ice cream for sugar free jelly, fruit or low fat-low yoghurt.

5 A Day

Fruits and vegetables are a great source of vitamins, minerals and fibre. We all know it is important for us to eat a variety of at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but how many of us manage it? Luckily, it is much easier than you realise and it doesn’t have to be expensive. You can keep the costs down by buying canned fruit and veg, which doesn’t go off as quickly. Choose canned fruit in its own juice – it’s healthier than fruit in sugary syrup.

Simple Snack Swaps

We all probably snack a little more than we should. Its easy to grab a chocolate bar or bag of crisps if we are peckish. If the snacks are there, we will eat them! However they are full of saturated fat, sugar and salt. By making just a few adjustments to your snacks and choosing healthier alternatives, you can make a massive difference to your diet.

Here are some top tips to avoid snacking too much

• Serve yourself a portion of food for a snack and then put the rest away
• Ask yourself if you're really hungry, or if or if you're thirsty - try having a glass of water before reaching for a snack
• Don't eat when you're distracted - for example while watching TV - as it's easy to eat too much without noticing
• Keep to regular meal times - especially breakfast
• Always have fruit to hand - it's the healthiest snack and will count towards your five a day
• Don't shop on an empty stomach and make a list before you go

Learn more about Healthy Snack Swaps

Beat the Fat

We know too much fat is bad for our health, however it is hard to know where it's hiding in our foods. It is in a lot of the everyday foods we eat and so it can seem difficult to cut down. We need some fat in our diets to help our bodies absorb vitamins and stay healthy. It is the saturated fat we need to avoid because it can cause the level of cholesterol in your blood to build up over time and raised cholesterol increases your risk of heart disease. Check out the Change4Life page on ways how you can cut down on the fat you eat...

Learn how to Cut Back on Fat

A healthier, happier you!

Recent evidence suggests that good nutrition is essential for our mental health and that a number of mental health conditions may be influenced by dietary factors. As well as its impact on short and long-term mental health, the evidence indicates that food plays an important role in the prevention of specific mental health problems such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, and Alzheimer's. Just as physical fitness helps our bodies to stay strong, mental fitness helps us to achieve and sustain a state of good mental health. When we are mentally healthy, we enjoy our life and environment, and the people in it. We can be creative, learn, try new things, take risk and we are better able to cope with difficult times in our personal and professional lives. We feel the sadness and anger that can come with the death of a loved one, a job loss or relationship problems, but in time, we are able to get on with and enjoy our lives once again.

Mental Health Foundation’s podcasts on 10 Tips to look after your mental health

Top Tips To Get Started

• Have regular meals
• Eat 5 portions of fruit & vegetables per day
• Cut down on fat, especially saturated fat
• Eat less salt
• Think about drinks
• Be a savvy shopper
• Eat smart when eating out

Get in touch with a Get Healthy Coach today to start your journey to a healthier new you!