Healthy Eating: Choosing What Lands on Your Plate

By Mirabel Emma Aleladia

Healthy eating is probably one of the biggest factors in determining whether or not you live a fulfilling life. What you eat affects everything that you do; for that reason, it is important that you are intentional about what lands on your plate. More interestingly, apart from your appearance, food has been closely linked with brain development and even your emotional wellbeing. The popular quote, “You are what you eat” refers not only to your body but very well applies to your state of mind. In a nutshell, what you eat determines the quality of life you will have.

Paying attention to our plate is especially important as we age, I always like to imagine my body like a car. We all know that friend or family member who has very good maintenance culture with their car, they’ve had this car for ages, but somehow it still works perfectly; they change the oils when necessary, service when due and more humorously treat their car like an egg. In the same way, our bodies are machines and when we put garbage in what we get is garbage out.

Eating healthy is not the easiest habit to cultivate, but it is definitely worth it. I started my healthy living lifestyle when I woke up one morning, and I suddenly couldn’t fit into my size 8 clothes. All my life, I had never really gained a lot of weight sporadically, when I took a closer examination of my lifestyle, I realised that I had radically changed my eating habits. So, there I was with my new size 12 body, confused and fake surprised about it all. In fact, I remember that I had been stress eating; this is a common habit and occurs due to emotional distress. I will talk about this more in my next article. I mapped out my journey to return to my normal figure and funny enough it involved very little exercise.

I became intentional about my portions and carefully chose what landed on my plate; in no time at all I was back to my former self. Again, it is not the easiest thing to do, but it is one of the most important choices you can make every day. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, we must change our psych and belief that eating healthy is not a matter of impermanence to understanding that it should be as vital as the need to breathe clean air.

Finally, my biggest philosophy on food is that it must be enjoyable and nutritious. There is a healthy meal for everyone; in fact, there are a variety of healthy meals that you can enjoy. The common ideology is that healthy meals are unenjoyable. However, this is a myth; there are equally as many delicious and nutritious healthy foods as there are unhealthy ones. A great place for you to start is @Snaxxsaladsandsides on Instagram, there’s a lot of variety for everyone, and it is definitely worth it.