Want to Eat Healthier? Simply Recipes Wants to Help!

It's a brand new year, friends! New beginnings and new projects to tackle! New mountains to climb and new goals to achieve! I admit to being one of those annoying people who wakes up on January 1st with a big smile on my face and a notepad already in hand for writing out a long list of things I want to do. (Don't hate me.)

One of the big projects we're tackling here at Simply Recipes this new year has to do with healthy eating.

I'm not talking about dieting or any kind of calorie counting or restrictive eating. I'm talking about straight-up healthy eating. The good foods we put in our mouths to make our bodies feel awesome and ready to climb all those mountains.

Healthy Eating Reset Challenge (Free!)

Want to kick off your own healthy eating adventure? Join us this January for our first ever January Reset Challenge! Blogger and registered dietitian Katie Morford is going to help us think through what healthy eating means to each of us so we can make good decisions for our own bodies.

Participation is entirely free and includes:

• Weekly meal plans that are custom-made for our January Reset
• A new challenge each week to fine-tune healthy habits (with prizes!)
• New recipes, developed especially for the Challenge
• Access to a private Facebook group to share ideas, learn new tips, and get inspired

Ready?! Sign up for the January Reset Challenge right here!

What does healthy eating mean to Simply Recipes? I'm glad you asked! Read on!

Healthy Eating Isn't One Size Fits All

Healthy eating isn't a one size fits all situation. It has a lot to do with our individual bodies and what makes us each feel good or not-so-good. It's about paying attention to what our bodies are telling us and making little adjustments along the way. It's a work in progress.

So healthy eating for you might look a little (or a lot) different than what it looks like for me—and hey, that's ok.

A Roadmap for Healthy Eating

But still, we have to start somewhere, right? Here is the general roadmap for what we consider to be everyday healthy eating here on Simply Recipes:

• Lots of fruits and vegetables of every stripe and color
• A variety of whole grains, legumes, and beans
• Protein! Fish, chicken, tofu, tempeh, and eggs in our weekly meals, with room for occasional lean cuts of red meat
• Fresh dairy foods like yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, and milk, as well as their non-dairy counterparts. Cheese, too, but in moderation.
• Foods that provide healthy fats, such as nuts, seeds, avocado, and olive oil
• Whole grain versions of breads, pastas, and tortillas
• Mindful use of added sugars, with an emphasis on less processed sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, and dates

You've probably noticed the absence of things like refined sugar, fatty cuts of meat, heavily processed foods, foods with artificial ingredients, and sweetened drinks on this list. That doesn't mean that they are no-no's; it just means that it's probably best to rely on them less heavily. Think of them as a treat rather than a part of your everyday diet.

Also, everything in moderation. This is just a roadmap, and you're allowed to veer off the path for a picnic every now and then.

"Healthy" Recipes on Simply Recipes

We've created a new collection of recipes from the Simply Recipes archive that fit the guidelines we talked about above. You can take a look at it right here:

• Healthy Recipes on Simply Recipes

We'll be adding to this collection all the time, so bookmark it for when you need some help planning meals for the week or inspiration to get you out of a rut.