Eating healthy is what most of us strive for. We know it’s important and will help us live a happy and healthy life. Sometimes, however, it can feel difficult to make healthy eating choices, especially when less healthy options are cheaper and easily accessible. It’s up to us to choose to eat healthy, so let’s set ourselves up for success.

Here are some tips on how to fit healthy eating into your life in simple ways!

Frozen produce is just as good as fresh

A limitation to eating healthy food sometimes has to do with accessibility. Whether that be location, time, or cost, it can be hard for some to access fresh produce. Similarly, if you have access to fresh produce, it only lasts for so long before it begins to go bad.  An easy way to fix any of these issues is to buy frozen fruits and vegetables that can be stored in your freezer and easily defrost for healthy meals. Frozen vegetables can be purchased almost anywhere, and if you have different brands available to you, there’s a choice of flash-frozen and other options indicating the produce was immediately frozen upon harvesting. Don’t let uncertainty about frozen produce stop you from using this as a means to get affordable and healthy produce to aid in your healthy eating journey.

Two Words: Meal Prep

Meal prepping, or what I grew up calling it “leftovers,” is a surefire way to fit healthy eating into your life. Making healthy meals and packing up proper portions for your meals will take the choice fatigue out of deciding what to eat, cooking, or spending money on takeout or delivery. . With meal prepping, you can dedicate a specific day to cook and prep your meals for the week, or even biweekly if you’re someone who doesn’t like to eat the same thing for several days in a row.  There are no rules to follow; just plan your healthy meals, get your ingredients, and invest in containers for the various meals you’ll have throughout the week and store them properly. You’ll thank yourself for being able to warm food up instead of needing to cook a meal multiple times a week.

Eat when you’re hungry

This sounds simple, but there are a lot of myths around how many times we should eat a day, in addition to the size of the meal, the best time of day to eat, etc. Most of us grew up being told that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and that we should eat three balanced meals daily. Now there is intermittent fasting, advice to eat more but smaller meals throughout the day, or to skip breakfast altogether. According to Healthline, what’s most important is to eat when you’re hungry. Listening to your body and your internal body clock helps you understand what your body needs and for planning your meals. Learn to listen to and trust your body instead of forcing yourself to eat a large breakfast if you’re not hungry.

Water. Water. Water.

Again, this isn’t anything new. We should all be drinking more water. Water itself is necessary to stay hydrated and keep our bodies functioning properly, without adding empty calories in the form of processed and sugary drinks. Even 100% fruit juice beverage isn’t as healthy as it may seems as many of the fruit’s nutritional benefits are lost in the juice, and the natural juices have more sugar. If you are a fruit juice or pop drinker, consider swapping out half your drinks with water, and set a goal to make water your beverage of choice. Having a juice or pop every once in a while is okay, but to make your goal of drinking more water fun, invest in a good water bottle that you can keep with you, and filled, throughout the day. Your body will definitely thank you for increasing your water intake and you’ll be surprised to notice the little improvements in your body, from your skin to your digestion when you up your water intake.