How to eat a REAL FOOD diet

Eating real food is one of the best things you can do for your body and for achieving your health and wellness goals. Healthy food has the potential to accelerate you towards feeling great and in combination with movement you enjoy, you are well on way your way to feeling and looking your best.

Brisbane nutritionist, naturopath and mum Casey-Lee Lyons from Live Love Nourish explains how to “eat real food”.

The term real food is literally means to eat real, wholesome food as close to its natural state as possible and eliminate processed and packaged food.

Here are my tips to help you embrace a ‘real food’ approach to your nutrition:

Stick to whole foods.
Eat foods as close to their natural state as possible.
Keep it simple. Cook whole food ingredients.
Focus on quality not quantity. It’s the quality of your ingredients that count.
Avoid jar sauces, marinades and prepared packet mixes. Instead flavour your meals with real food ingredients such as herbs, spices, lemon, lime, garlic and onion.
Avoid preservatives, numbers and additives. Ingredients listed should be real food ingredients you can generally see! If you can’t pronounce an ingredients or need a science degree to interpret ingredients, put it back. (Except quinoa – you should eat “keen-wah”).
Shop at farmer’s markets. You will be inspired to purchase fresh and real food and avoid the temptation of packaged, well-adversed foods found in supermarkets. If you shop at a supermarket, stick to the perimeter where the whole food sections are. Notice how all of the packaged food is found in the aisles!
Eat like your grandparent used to! Home cooked, simple, wholesome meals.
Learn to cook. You don’t need to be a fancy chef just learn to cook simple and healthy meals you and your family love.
Avoid refined flours, refined sugars, artificial sweeteners.
Short cuts and “fast foods” might buy you time but they wont buy you health.
Fresh is best.

Enjoy the Live Love Nourish REAL FOOD approach on the 8-Week Program:

If you are looking for real food support and nutritional guidance to achieve your health and wellness goals, check out the Live Love Nourish 8-Week Program. This online interactive program is designed by a qualified nutritionist and aims to inspire you to nourish your body with 8 weeks of healthy meal plans, easy recipes and nutrition and lifestyle guides for increased energy, finding your natural weight, improving your gut and digestive health, balancing hormones, curbing sugar cravings, developing a healthy relationship with your body and nourishing it with real food. You can find out more HERE.

This article first appeared on www.livelovenourish.com.au