Eat better, feel better

The right diet helps every part of us feel its best – good skin, healthy hair, lower body fat, more energy, increased strength and focus. It has a 360° effect which goes far beyond just seeing a decreasing number on the scales.

1. Enjoy breakfast

Many people believe that skipping breakfast will help cut calories from their daily intake and therefore shed pounds. But it also has a huge impact on performance throughout the day, as people who miss breakfast tend to feel tired early on and have low concentration levels, affecting their efficiency. Check out our article 7 ways to supercharge your workday breakfast for new ideas.

2. Healthy snacking

Healthy snacking plays a pivotal role in overall health and wellbeing. By snacking on good nutritious foods, our minds and bodies feel the benefit. Healthy snacking helps curb cravings, manage weight, regulate mood, boost brain power and gives you the energy you need to power through your day.

Many foods marketed as snacks are full of sugar and salt and terrible for our health – like biscuits, cereal bars, crackers, and crisps. Instead stick to whole foods including dates, blueberries, cucumber sticks, apples, nuts and many more.

3. Mindful eating

Often we are so busy or distracted that we eat without really paying attention. This is more likely to lead to overeating as we eat too quickly without giving our brain a chance to tell us we’re full. It’s also important to pay attention to emotional eating: learning the difference between eating because we’re hungry and eating because we’re bored or sad or stressed.

4. Hydrate

Our bodies have a much easier job giving their best when we are hydrated. Muscles repair quicker, metabolisms are faster, our circulation and digestion are better. We should aim to drink at least two litres of water a day, and more if exercising.

5. Keep an eye on ultra-processed food

A whopping 56 per cent of the calories that the average person in the UK eats come from ultra-processed foods. You can usually recognise these by ingredients that you wouldn’t add when cooking homemade food, such as chemicals, colourings, sweeteners and preservatives.

This is a problem because in order to become fit and healthy, we need to eat real foods. Ultra-processed foods are often high in hidden fat, sugar and salt content and don’t offer much nutritional value in return for the number of calories they contain.

What’s more, ultra-processed foods are chemically altered to give them their taste and keep us craving more. We know they’re only supposed to be consumed as an occasional treat, but lots of us have them as weekly if not daily parts of our diets.

When consumed frequently, they can cause issues including mood swings, sleep loss and weight gain. So it’s important to keep an eye on how much ultra-processed food we consume and swap to healthy natural food instead.

For practical tips on eating a balanced diet, try our article Cutting down on salt or 7 ways to supercharge your workday breakfast