It is important to eat healthy when eating out, but it is even more essential to a healthy lifestyle to eat nutritiously at home. If you are like most women, you are frequently looking for ways to stay in shape, lose weight or improve your health. Diet is key in achieving these aims and since many of your meals are eaten at home, there is no better place to start than in your own kitchen. Here are seven diet tips to help you eat healthier at home.

Healthy eating doesn’t mean dieting – Diets don’t work!
Though research shows there is no one ideal diet and that fad-dieting doesn’t work, it is hard not to be lured in by the many miracle claims of most quick-fix diet plans (don’t miss Expert tips to avoid fad diets).

However, Hope Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE, lead nutritionist at Novo Nordisk Presents: Divabetic – Makeover Your Diabetes and author of Eat Out, Eat Right, says “People need to stop thinking of healthy eating as going on a prescribed diet. We need to think more about making slow and steady behavior changes to choose and eat healthier foods. Diets don’t work. Behavior changes do.”

Taking small steps at home is more likely to lead to long-term changes. Warshaw offers the following tips to get you started.

7 tips to eat healthier at home

1. Eat more fruit

Warshaw recommends shooting for two cups of fruit per day. She says, “Take a couple pieces of fruit from home to work. Fit one in at breakfast. Drink 100 percent fruit juice – especially juice fortified with calcium and vitamin D.” (Try these spa-inspired recipes from Canyon Ranch to boost your citrus intake.)

2. Eat more vegetables

Vegetables and fruit are equally important for their high nutrient levels. Aim for two and a half cups per day.

“Take advantage of all the ready-to-eat veggies in markets, such as carrots, celery, tomatoes, lettuces and other leafy greens, and salad and vegetable mixtures,” suggests Warshaw. Vegetables are easy to microwave or stir-fry and deliciously mix with lean proteins and whole grains for satisfying, lower-calorie meals.

3. Choose more whole grains foods

There is a delectable array of whole grains to add to your diet (and to replace the white, processed grains and grain products). Whole grain goods like brown or wild rice, quinoa (try these kid-friendly quinoa recipes), buckwheat and whole grain cereals, pasta, and breads are much more flavorful and nutritious than white rice, white flour or other processed grain foods.

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