Laziest (and practical) hacks to start eating healthier!
I am as lazy and as foodie, as you are, and I know your struggle. But you are going to take your first step towards healthy eating today, I guarantee. And I also promise I will not talk about superfoods, meal prep, and salads here. This is a no bullshit guide to get you on track, with no excuse for laziness. So no over the top hacks or overhyped miraculous recipes, but just some easy, tried and tested tips and experiences to help you start treating your body the way it deserves and putting the right stuff in.
These tips helped me lose weight, get better skin and hair, be a lot more active, get sick less, and feel so much better about myself.
And, not just the ‘what’ food, but the ‘how’ and ‘when’ of the food matters equally. Slowly and steadily start incorporating these easy as hell hacks, and I promise you will be sharing these with your friends and family as well because they are so cool. And easy. And awesome. And healthy!
So I have included 6 “Health tips” along with their scientifically “claimed benefits”, my experience implementing those tips, and how you can actually follow it in your “super busy” (read just lazy to act) schedules.
1. Starting your day with Water
Claimed Benefit- Water gives your body that much-needed hydration after long hours of sleep and kick starts your metabolism (and it instantly makes you rush to the washroom, in case that doesn’t happen already). Fitness gurus recommend adding lemon and honey to warm water and have it every morning empty stomach.
My experience- The day I started drinking lemon water, I realized how good does it feel to have your stomach empty in the morning and how refreshed it felt. Else I always felt bloated and troubled and ate breakfast on top of it too.
How to make it easy- Let’s be honest, who would warm the water with eyes barely open? So I used to just fill a glass with room temperature water, squeeze a lemon, (add honey sometimes) and gulp it down. For honey, I initially had a glass jar, for which I had to use a spoon to scoop it out. That was an additional effort for me (please don’t judge me). As James Clear said in Atomic Habits- make your habit EASY to follow!. So I poured it into an empty ketchup bottle where I could just squeeze out honey in water, add lemon, and swirl the glass in my hand only. Tada! Or you know what, just begin with drinking plain water. Just do it!
2. Have a light, fixed menu for breakfast, and don’t skip it
Claimed Benefit- A light nutritious breakfast meal is essential to “break-the-fast” and gets you going for your day. Plus having a fixed menu saves you time to think about what to eat (and your lazy mind can just do a happy lazy dance meanwhile).
My experience- Never eat chhole bhatoore for breakfast (or lunch) if you are at work. I have been there, done that, and regretted it too. I was a lot more groggy, lazy, and always felt uneasy. Now I have switched to having lighter, more nutritious meals for breakfast and I no more crave quick and unhealthy breakfast/snack options just because I am hungry since night. It also prevents my body from solely spending energy on digesting food. I now have the energy to accomplish the tasks in the morning, more actively. Trust me, this feeling is awesome and you won’t know it until you feel it!
How to make it easy — So I used to make my breakfast at home and took it with me to the office. It was fixed. Peanut butter (zero sugar) spread on 2–3 slices of bread (whole wheat, no sugar), topped with slices of banana, a little drizzle of chocolate syrup, and a sprinkle of chia seeds. Breakfast ready in 5 minutes! The lazy tip here is- find an easy-to-make (probably no-cook-meal like overnight oats), tasty and nutritious recipe. And if in case I did not have ingredients to prepare my breakfast at home or running late, I would have it in the office. This was fixed too. Vegetable masala omelet. I headed straight to the omelet corner. Not even choosing the route with the parantha/ samosa/ cheese sandwich corner (because out of sight, out of mind). The struggle was real!
3. Cutting down on sugar
Claimed Benefits- By ‘sugar’ I mean ‘added sugar’ in things that are not naturally sweet, that is refined white sugar, corn syrups, fructose, molasses that are added to most of the packaged food (even the ones that aren’t sweet. Chocolates (obviously), biscuits, juices, colas, bread, cereals, cakes, sauces, you name it. And these sugars are just empty calories harming your health. Whereas fruits, vegetables, milk contain sugar naturally that also provide fiber, vitamins, and other nutrition. Cutting down on sugar has numerous health benefits including reduced fat, losing weight, better heart and skin, and lowered risk of diabetes.
My Experience- I swear on this one, it was the hardest thing to do! I LOVE CHOCOLATE and CHOCOLATE LOVES ME. But when I found out that the biggest (OK one of the biggest) concerns of my life- good looking skin was actually related to sugar, I called it quits. I drastically reduced my ‘added’ sugar intake and focussed on eating fruits rather. And voila! I literally saw the difference in my skin in a matter of just a few weeks.
How to make it easy- If you could follow just one of my tips, this would be it- Do not purchase and bring sugar-loaded, packaged food to your home. If you don’t have it, you will not have it. For this, do not even pass through the snacks aisle in your grocery store. Out of sight- out of mind really works! Plus give yourself alternatives rather than forcing self-control on yourself. Have fruits, nuts, or bake some whole wheat cookies with jaggery (which by the way is very less processed as compared to white sugar and is loaded with iron). And most importantly-
If you feel like having your favorite sugar loaded unhealthy dessert once in, say 10 days, have it! Yes, have it! We all deserve some occasional treats, plus this signals our brain that we can have what we like, but only occasionally and skip it rest of the time.
4. Try intermittent fasting
Claimed Benefits- As intimidating as it may sound, but intermittent fasting is pretty good and easy. The purpose is to give your body time to digest and heal. We are eating something or the other all the time. Even before our last meal is entirely digested, we throw in a new heap of food, making this a vicious cycle of undigested food lying in our bodies. When we give a gap of 14–16 hours between our meals (the dinner and breakfast being most practical), our body works on digesting food as well as finds time to heal our body, which it otherwise doesn’t.
My experience- I never knew I was following intermittent fasting on weekends already because I would anyway wakeup mid-afternoon, giving me that gap of 16 hours! Not even kidding. And it was already evident to me that my stomach felt better on those days and that was because I was eating less. I was giving my stomach a break!
How to make it easy- It can be difficult initially as we are habitual of late-night snacking and starting our days with coffee/tea. But to get into this new routine, try having your dinner as early as possible. Then if you sleep late at night, have some light snacks like peanuts or puffed rice to just have some if you feel hungry. Otherwise- just sleep when you hear your stomach growling. My schedule allows me to have my dinner at 9 pm. Then in the morning, I have water several times before I have my breakfast by 11:30 am. It’s OK! I know it's just 14–15 hours, but don't worry about perfection. Just try to maximize that time gap. And try doing something that you love in the morning to engross yourself and not think about eating. And you will slowly fall in love with this feeling of giving your body time to heal :)
5. Heavy lunch, light dinner
Claimed Benefits- As I already mentioned, it is not mandatory to keep our stomach filled always, and our body needs a break blah blah blah. So having a light dinner actually helps (and also compliments the intermittent fasting) by not wasting your body’s precious time in the same boring digestion work even at night, when it can actually work on the magical healings. ‘Heavy’ here means the foods that take a long time to digest like grains and meat.
My experience- When I look back, I literally laugh at the amount of food I used to engulf every single day. Heavy breakfast, heavy lunch, super unhealthy snack break, and then heavy dinner (sometimes very heavy) again. What the hell was I even doing? Living on auto-pilot I guess. But this tip along with cutting down on sugar played a significant role in helping me lose weight and regulate my metabolism.
How to make it easy- Whatever you want to eat, eat it during lunch. Simple. Love pizza? Biryani? Burgers? Have it. But wait! It doesn’t mean that you turn your lunch table into a feast just because you have been following the ‘healthy tips’. The idea here is to not strike off all the tasty, heavy, (and sometimes unhealthy) meals off your life, but enjoy them occasionally during lunch. And for dinner, have a list of meals that are healthy and easy to digest. My favorites are dosa, vegetable saute with tofu, upma, oats. Feel free to add your regional delicacies to your list. Just keep it light!
I hope that my detailed insights into my journey and my personal tips helped you believe that it is not all that difficult to eat healthier. Now after almost 1.5 years of following these tips, I don't think I can go back to my earlier eating habits, and damn! I can’t believe I am saying this. Nevertheless, I enjoyed that phase of mindless hogging as well, but somewhere down I knew that it was not healthy and sustainable for my body in long run. And I know that everyone’s body is screaming the same thing. So listen close, and start acting now. Believe it or not, you are not that lazy to bring these simple changes to your life as well.
Just don’t expect miraculous results right in the beginning. So slow, or go all right in, just remember to be consistent!
And mark my words- healthy eating is addictive!
This was my first time sharing my knowledge and experience on Medium. Let me know if you liked it and share your tips and tricks to keep healthy down below.
