6 Ways Eating Healthy Can Improve Your Life

February 6th 2024

Nutrition! Have you ever heard of it? I sure hope you have, because if you haven't, you're not properly planning on having a productive and healthy life. You see what goes into your body physically is just as important or debatably even more important than what you put into your body mentally.

Now I know this is something we've all heard starting in elementary/primary school but a balanced and healthy nutrition routine can REALLY make a world of difference for you. I'm sure if you're reading this article, you probably want to improve your life by either making some more money, losing weight and/or just overall feeling better about yourself. All these things and more would affected if you just gave your body the right material to work at 100%. How though? Let me give you a list of things that would be improved and explain to you why it would change your reality. Starting with the most obvious:

Weight Loss

Whether you start a diet and begin to exercise, or you simply just start eating healthier, you will notice that the healthier foods and lesser calorie intake will lead you to lose a great amount of weight over time. People who commonly eat the typical Western diet, pancakes for breakfast, french fries for lunch, and a burger for dinner, also tend to overconsume the amount of calories their body needs for their daily lives. These excess calories unless immediately somehow put to use, will go straight into becoming excess fat on the body. When we substitute our diet for something more sustainable and catered to our daily lives, there will be little to no excess. In this case, our body over time will eat into our unwanted fat and slowly begin to diminish it. Dieting and purposely consuming fewer calories than our body requires a day will increase this effect, but don't overdo it, because it could lead to some serious health issues.

Muscle Definition

Another fairly obvious impacted region of physical appearance, regardless if you work out or not, is going to be muscle definition and possibly growth. Bouncing off the previously stated improvement, if we humans began to intake the right amount of protein that our body requires and began to lose weight, chances are, we'd begin to notice a more defined muscular look. When we lose weight, our muscles have more time to shine they're not being covered and blemished by the extra fat we have hanging around. I did state that we could have possible muscle growth from a better-balanced meal plan, but to have muscle growth, there must be some sort of training stimulus so unless you begin to lift weights or have a labor-intensive job, your muscle increase would probably be minimal.

Mental Health

Studies have sh0wn that having a balanced and nutritionally healthy diet can decrease your chances of one day obtaining a mental disability. This is because the food we ingest directly correlates with the hormones we produce. According to studies done at Harvard diets which contain highly processed sugars and foods not only raise a persons insulin and serotonin levels but may also impair brain functions. Problems like depression and anxiety may be direct results of what we eat due to the sugars messing with our intestines, and not allowing the right nutrients to reach the rest of our body.

Mental Clarity

Have you ever walked into a room to immediately forgot why you entered it? Or have you been in the middle of writing a paper to then lose your train of thought due to the slightest distraction? When our brain is given all the right tools to function at peak performance, this mental fog clears up. It will help with the frustration of not being able to remember and help with a person self esteem. It would help someone's self-esteem by allowing them to think quicker and feel like they're living in the moment. Being able to focus and perform in the now is just as important as thinking ahead. A healthy brain is a quick brain, meaning it would help with reflexes and thinking on your toes.

Money Growth

Let's not forget that along with all the mental and physical benefits of healthy eating. Making your own meals at home and meal prepping, may also be cheaper and save you money. After a quick Google search, the average person spends $166 on dining out a month. Let's keep in mind that is just for one person. Multiply that by the amount of people living with you and that will quickly add up. On another note, LinkedIn, an employment-focused social media platform has done research that shows the more overweight a person is, the more likely they are to be making a lesser salary than someone thinner and healthier. So not only are you likely to be saving money by purchasing and making your food at home, but you may also be more capable of finding a job with a better wage.

These were just a few aspects of life that would change for the better if you simply put down the daily chips and soda because they're easily accessible, and instead watched what you eat. Just because it's easy, doesn't mean it's good.

Tips

I understand that healthy eating isn't as easy or as cheap as many make it seem, so here are a few resources and tips to help you get on your feet.

• Delivery Services
  • There are plenty of food services catered to sending healthy ingredients to your front door along with instructions on how to use them in cooking.
• Dieting
  • I recommend doing your research to find what best fits your lifestyle and price range. Some diet ideas include going Keto, Carnivore, Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, and others.
  • Keep in mind, that the idea is to cut calories while still intaking the right nutrients. 
• Food Trackers/Journaling
  • Write down what you're eating and how you feel to see how your body reacts to different foods.
  • Listen to your body, not your taste buds!
• Meal Prep
  • Preparing your meals beforehand and only eating what you've made for yourself is a good way to fight the temptation of eating out and having things you shouldn't be eating.
• Slow Eating
  • Eating slower allows your body time to measure how much food you have eaten to see if you're full or not.
  • Over-eating = Extra Calories = Excess Fat
• More Water
  • Drinking the right amount of water a day not only is good for your brain but is also good for your stomach since it makes you feel more full, causing you to not feel so hungry.

In conclusion, you should be aware of what you eat and understand what you're putting into your body. Just because something may taste good, doesn't always mean that it's good for you too. Do your research and keep yourself disciplined. It's okay to let loose once in a while but don't make it a norm.

Sources:

MD, Eva Selhub. “Nutritional Psychiatry: Your Brain on Food.” Harvard Health, Harvard Medical School, 18 Sept. 2022, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/nutritional-psychiatry-your-brain-on-food-201511168626.

Owen, Lauren, and Bernard Corfe. “The Role of Diet and Nutrition on Mental Health and Wellbeing: Proceedings of the Nutrition Society.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 14 July 2017, www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/role-of-diet-and-nutrition-on-mental-healthandwellbeing/372284768DB78DB02EB199E277AABF79.

Owyang, Michael T., and E Katarina Vermann. “Re-Examining the Link between Obesity and Wages: St. Louis Fed.” Saint Louis Fed Eagle, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 9 Dec. 2021, www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/october-2011/worth-your-weight-reexamining-the-link-between-obesity-and-wages

Tyrwhitt, Caroline. “Is Your Weight Impacting Your Income?” LinkedIn, 3 July 2020, www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-weight-impacting-income-caroline-tyrwhitt