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Today’s post is in response to a question I got over on Instagram (shoutout to April!), about how I’ve gradually adjusted my diet over the years to be healthier. We’ve touched on this a bit before, but early into my food/cooking journey I would choose recipes solely based on what looked and tasted good and what I was craving. In one meal I might make a puff pastry based appetizer, a creamy pasta dish, homemade french bread, and a big tray of brownies. Guys, my brownie recipe at the time called for THREE CUPS of sugar. (On that note, I have seriously THE BEST brownie recipe on the blog now, and it involves no refined sugar… you’re going to love it!). So while this food was absolutely delicious, you can see how if one ate like this on the daily it might start to ummmm… add up! And I’m not just talking about weight gain; there’s also the health risks that prolonged poor nutrition and lack of exercise lead to: high blood pressure, heart disease/stroke, type-2 diabetes, some types of cancer, mental health issues, oesteoporosis… it’s not a nice list, is it? Becoming a parent was the catalyst for me to really start thinking about our nutrition as more than just whatever looked and tasted the best. I now had the responsibility of nourishing little growing bodies and setting them up for how they will eat for life – that’s a tall order!

Now, let me first say that I am not a trained nutritionist or dietician. I’m just going to share with you the changes I’ve personally made in my own diet over the years. This may seem like a lot of information at first but I really want to impress upon you that there’s nothing overly complicated or earth shattering to eating healthier. I try to eat real whole foods, I minimize my gluten and dairy intake, I practice moderation. It’s not rocket science! That being said, I want to make this really practical for you guys, so let’s get into the nitty gritty to give you an idea of how this looks in real life.

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Healthy Swaps

I don’t know about you but restrictive diets have never been my jam. Rather than focus on all the foods I “can’t” have, I like to instead find healthy alternatives I can enjoy on a regular basis. I’ve slowly worked on swapping out processed ’empty’ calories for nutrient dense, whole food alternatives. Processed foods have been largely stripped of their nutritional benefits, while remaining high in calories, fat, sodium, carbs, and/or sugar. They are often addictive due to their high sugar content and preservatives like MSG. This creates a vicious cycle – we tend to crave them on a regular basis and overeat when we do. That’s not even to mention the harmful artificial additives that many processed foods contain. Whole foods, on the other hand, are packed with beneficial vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and micronutrients. They leave us feeling satisfied, refreshed and nourished. We are more likely to stop eating when we’re full because the natural sugar content of these foods is balanced with fibre that satiates our appetites and curbs the blood sugar spike. I could go into why each of the following ingredients is problematic or beneficial but we’d be here for… 1,467 years. So I’m just going to list the more problematic processed ingredients I used to live on, and fill you in on the whole food, nutrient dense alternatives I’ve since replaced them with. Here we go!

White sugar – replace with coconut sugar (lowest on the glycemic index of these 3), unpasterized honey, and/or pure maple syrup

White flour – replace with whole grain flour, sprouted spelt flour, sourdough, and gluten free flour alternatives like almond flour

Sandwich Bread/Burger Buns – Serve open faced to cut the carbs in half or skip all together and serve lettuce wrapped or over a salad

White Pasta – whole grain pasta, chic pea pasta (I love the Banza brand at Costco), spiralized veggie noddles made with fresh zucchini, butternut squash, etc.

Shaker Cheese – swap with nutritional yeast. I still eat cheese as I’m not lactose intolerant, but I’ve started to swap in nutritional yeast when I can because I’d rather use the calories for something else. Like brownies. Plus, nutritional yeast is packed with nutritional benefits, learn more about it here.

Soy Sauce – swap with coconut aminos or liquid aminos

Sour Cream – plain greek yogurt

Protein powder – collagen peptides

Milk/Cream – almond milk, cashew cream, coconut milk

Cereal – oatmeal, naturally sweetened granola and plain greek yogurt

Flavoured yogurt – plain greek yogurt with fresh fruit and/or natural sweetener

Processed peanut butter – natural peanut butter, almond butter, powdered peanut butter

Jams/jellies – double the fruit, honey or fruit juice sweetened jam with 5g or less sugar per serving.

Chips, Crispers, Cheetos, etc. – homemade popcorn with butter/coconut oil and sea salt, bean crisps (I buy them at costco), rice cakes, pistachios (I buy shell on for the affordable price and they take you longer to eat so you will consume less at a time than if you bought shelled)

Chocolate bars – 70% or darker chocolate. I like to break off a few squares and add a few almonds or pecans for a good snack, or serve with some fresh berries/fruit

Candy (my favourite used to be sour patch kids) – granny smith apple thinly sliced – it seriously does the trick for me! Or try Smart Sweets, they are the best sugar free, low calorie candy I’ve ever tried, and they’re packed with fibre!! My favourite kinds are the Sour Blast Buddies, Sweet Fish, and Peach Rings.

Desserts/baking – look for low carb refined sugar free recipes, gluten and dairy free if you prefer. You can find a healthy recipe alternative for pretty much every dessert out there! Check out my tagalong bars, no bake energy bites, no bake bars, and other snacks to get you going!

Pop, juice, lattes, other sugary drinks – ice water (add things like fresh lemon, lime, cucumber slices, mint, etc. if you like more flavour), sparkling flavoured water with no sugar added, naturally sweetened coffee/tea, kombucha, healthy smoothies

Baby steps! This list may seem overwhelming at first if you’re just starting to think about making healthy changes in your diet. Keep in mind that I’ve made these changes over the course of several years, not simultaneously! If you want to live a sustainable healthy lifestyle, your best bet is to make small changes, one at a time, until they become second nature. Maybe start by cutting out pop and swapping in a no sugar sparkling water. When that becomes a habit for you, think about swapping white flour and/or white sugar for healthier alternatives. And so on. These small gradual successes will build confidence that you CAN do this, and you’ll feel the difference in your body along the way. If you try to do it all at once cold turkey, you may last a week. But then you’ll likely crash, feeling deprived and burnt out, and return to the comfort of your old ways. Baby steps friends, take it one step at a time. This is food for the rest of your life – take your time and try to enjoy the process.

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Monitor Your Intake

If you’ve already incorporated healthy swaps in your diet and you’re still frustrated that you don’t seem to be moving toward your goal, monitoring your intake might be the next step for you. There’s a pretty simple science to weight gain/weight loss. Consume more calories than you burn on the daily and you will gradually gain weight. Consume relatively equal calories to what you burn and you will maintain your weight. Consume less calories than what you burn in a day and you will gradually lose weight. Of course there are other factors at play like underlying health conditions, stress, water retention, hormone imbalances, etc. The medical side of things you should take up with your health professionals. Generally, the best place to start if you want to lose weight is to take a look at your calorie intake. I don’t count calories or track my food daily – I’m not going to lie to you, it is kind of inconvenient and time consuming. But I have done it for a few months at a time here and there over the years when I felt frustrated about my lack of progress. It is a fantastic tool that I think is best used for short periods of time (for your sanity’s sake!). If you don’t have a good understanding of how many calories and macronutrients there are in the food you eat, tracking your intake for a month or two is a great way to get an idea of where you’re starting from and what changes you could make to better achieve your goals. There are so many apps that make this process relatively easy to do. I would recommend My Fitness Pal or Fat Secret. Typically these apps will take your age, gender, and activity level into consideration to give you a recommendation of what your daily intake should be. From there you just enter everything you eat in a day and it will calculate it all up for you in a nice visual presentation. You will likely be surprised at some of the numbers! One of the best thing I learned from tracking my calories was to pay attention to the foods I like that are low in calories (most fruit and veggies, popcorn, rice cakes, etc). These things I can bulk up my portions on while moderating my portions of higher calorie foods. For me, eating a big plate of food helps me to feel full so it’s important that I stuff my plate with as many leafy greens and colourful veggies as possible or I’d easily end up with a disproportionate amount of calories every meal (the huge plates of bread and pasta I used to eat…). It was also really helpful to see the foods in my diet that are high in calories (cheese, peanut butter, breads, desserts, etc.). I don’t need to cut these out completely, I just need to keep portion control in mind and eat in moderation.

Now that I have a pretty good idea of the caloric and macronutrient composition of the foods I eat, I just eat intuitively. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. If I catch myself wanting to snack mindlessly, I try to stop and assess – am I really hungry or am I just bored, thirsty, tired, etc. Address the root problem, don’t solve everything by eating. Listening to your body’s cues is something you’ll learn over time with practice!

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The 80/20 Rule

Trying to eat perfectly and track your calories every single day for the rest of your life is just unattainable. I always keep in mind that I am aiming for a healthy lifestyle, not a restrictive diet plan. When I’m eating at a friends place or out at a restaurant, believe me I am not spouting off the requirements of my diet. I happily eat what is put in front of me! There are always ways of choosing the best options available, and if the best option is a hot dog, well I’ll just eat the hot dog and move on. I know that 80% of the time I’m eating the way I should, so the odd step outside of my usual here and there is not going to ruin my healthy lifestyle. Don’t become so consumed with what you eat that you can’t enjoy your daily life – that is counterproductive! Do your best. When you eat things that don’t fit in your healthy plan, move on and start fresh at the next opportunity, everything will be fine!

Don’t forget to Garnish!

Of course we can’t forget my namesake. Garnish makes all the difference. Healthy food gets a bad rap because people tend to think of it as boring and bland. Give me a plain bowl of spinach and I’m not really excited to eat it. Add a bunch of colourful veggies, maybe a fried egg, a scattering of red chili flakes, chia seeds, and a squeeze of fresh lemon and olive oil and things have gotten pretty exciting! I genuinely love the food I eat on the daily. I don’t find it a chore to eat healthy because the food I eat is full of flavour and colour and fresh ingredients. If you’re struggling to eat healthy, try amping up your garnish to spice things up and keep you interested. Here’s a list of my go to garnishes:

• fresh squeezed lemon/lime
• fresh herbs - parsley, cilantro, mint, chives, basil, etc.
• thinly sliced fresh veggies - carrot, cucumber, raddish, avocado to name a few
• dollop of greek yogurt
• hummus
• salsa fresca
• red chili flakes
• seeds - chia, hemp, sesame, and pumpkin seeds are my favourites
• nutritional yeast
• roasted nuts
• sourdough croutons
• roasted chic peas
• feta cheese
• kalamata olives

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Exercise – the other half of the equation

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention exercise when speaking of a healthy lifestyle. I’m not a fitness expert so I’m not going to go into too much detail here but I will add that having a regular fitness routine has been a game changer for me. I feel stronger, have more endurance, energy, and mental focus. And I can’t say I don’t appreciate the physical changes that come with exercise as well. The biggest hurdle to getting into exercise is getting over our excuses. I don’t have time, I can’t afford it, I don’t know how, I don’t have energy… The truth is if we really want something we can usually rearrange our priorities to make it happen. You don’t have to spend a bunch of time and money to get in shape. I have a set of dumbbells and resistance bands, a pair of running shoes, and an exercise mat in a little corner of my basement. I fit in my workouts when my baby naps and my toddler runs and climbs around me (even copying my moves sometimes, haha). I follow workouts on youtube and instagram that I find for free with some tunes pumping on my iPhone. I work out for 45-60 minutes 3-4 times a week, with mix of weight training and high intensity interval training (HIIT). If you’re curious as to what I do exactly, 95% of my workouts are from a fitness YouTuber named Whitney Simmons. She also posts lots of free workouts on Instagram. She has literally hundreds of workouts uploaded and I’ve found them to be super challenging, well laid out, easy to follow, and with lots of variation to keep things interesting.

Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy getting started and sticking with it, but I’ve grown to love it. I truly look forward to my workouts and am itching to get back whenever I skip out. So my advice for you is to just get moving, find something you love and stick with it. Discipline over motivation. Listen to your body and rest when you truly need to rest. Don’t let excuses get in your way, you got this!!

Let’s wrap this up! I hope I’ve given you some practical ideas of small steps you can make to move towards living a healthier lifestyle. Remember, it’s not complicated. Eat whole foods, practice moderation, and move your body! Let me know in the comments below one thing you would like to change or implement in your daily routine starting today. Talk to you soon 🙂