The Best Way to Eat

This is my favorite way to eat in the right proportions, eat healthy, and not count calories or be obsessed with what I'm eating. It seems a little complicated at first, but once you get it down, it becomes natural and you won't ever need to go on a diet or look at a sheet of paper.

Each of us needs the following foods:

• Protein ( eggs, lean meat, cottage cheese, cheese)
  
• Starch (whole wheat bread, pasta, beans, corn, tortilla)
  
• Vegetables
• Fruit
• Milk
• Fat (hummus, avocado, nuts, olive oil
  

Each of us needs so many servings of each per day. The American Diet Exchange says it should be 50% carbohydrates (which remember are fruits and vegetables too, not just bread.) 30% protein. And 20% fat. Healthy fat, of course :)

So break those foods down into servings per day: (This is for a 2000 calorie meal plan which equals to about 50:25:25 ratio instead of 50:30:20 as mentioned above.)

• Protein: 9 servings per day
  
• Starch: 8 servings
  
• Vegetables: 6 servings
• Fruit: 4 servings
• Milk: 3 servings
  
• Fat: 11 servings
  

Then you distribute out those servings throughout the day. For example:

• Breakfast:
  
• Protein - egg whites (2 servings)
• Starch - 1.5 cups of unsweetened cereal
• Milk - 2% milk (1 serving)
  
• Fruit - 1 banana (2 servings)
• Snack
• Fruit: small apple (1 servings)
  
• Protein: String Cheese (2 servings)
  
• Vegetable: 1.5 cups cooked veggies (2 servings)

• Lunch
• Protein: turkey (2 servings)
  
• Starch: Whole wheat bread ( 2 servings)
  
• Vegetables: tomatoes, lettuce, cut up cucumbers (2 servings)
  
• Fat: Hummus ( 1 serving)
  

You get the idea. So by the end of the day you get in all your servings but it was split up through out the day and balanced out. This way you can know by the time dinner is over if you've already eaten all your starches for the day, or fat so it determines whether or not it'd be a good idea to have a dessert. If you didn't eat all servings of the starches or fat you can spare some for dessert.

This is the healthiest way I know how to eat without being on a diet. It's just seeing food for what it is and having a balanced meal, every meal.

At first it might seem overwhelming or like a lot of work. But after a couple of weeks you won't need to look at a paper, you'll just look at food, identify what kind of food it is, and know about how much you should have for each meal. By now I just know what I've eaten earlier and it determines what my next meal will be.

If you need help on the portion sizes to see how much a serving is, you can check out the Nutrition post on serving sizes.