9 Healthier Food Choices that Have Worked for Me

I am no expert on healthy eating, as anyone who knows me would assert, but recently, in part because of a family member's heart condition, my family was given a lot of guidance from medical experts about making healthier food choices. We began about six months ago making these choices and doing so has led to losing weight and putting much healthier things into our bodies. Besides these benefits, the best thing has been how simple these choices are - and how easy they are to stick with. So, if you're looking to make a few healthier choices in your own diet, maybe these things we tried will be of use. None of these are all that original- the basic principles were handed down to us in various brochures and consultations and we improvised on the exact switches to find what worked for us. Of course, if you have any questions about any aspect of healthy eating, you should consult your family doctor.

Healthier Food Choice 1: Diet soda instead of regular soda. Every time I read a report about obesity in America, they really lower the boom on soda consumption. This apparently is especially a problem with kids who drink the stuff like crazy. If you're a track star running 5 miles a day, you can handle it. But if you're drinking hundreds of empty calories and not exercising...Thus, the problem. In my adult world, I actually gave up regular soda about a year ago for the diet stuff. Now, not only am I addicted to the crisp deliciosity that is diet, caffeine free cola (I just don't drink caffeine, that's not a diet thing...) but I find the regular stuff unpalatably sweet. I never thought I'd say that! Maybe you could give it a try too. Personally, if I drank regular soda, with it's 80-150 calories per glass calorie content, instead of diet soda now? Man, I'd either have to start running that five miles a day! Best bet of all would of course be to drink water, but, I'm not quite there yet. However, I highly recommend making the no cal soda switch. Save those calories for something better, like cake.

Healthier Food Choice 2: Ground turkey instead of ground beef. If ground beef is a staple of your diet, try using ground turkey instead. It's leaner and better for you. Yeah, it may sound weird and cost a little more, but try it out: turkey burgers aren't just for hippies, people! I vouch for the fact they're delicious as well as less fatty than beef patties. Throw on some lettuce and tomato - it's great turkey burger! Try turkey meatballs, too. Or ground turkey mixed in with tomato sauce and macaroni. The meat is so much lighter than beef, but yet, so good! In fact, the problem with their lightness is I get tempted to have seconds and often do. So watch the portion control. We haven't given up on ground beef all together in my house, but we haven't suffered any from seeing less of it.

Healthier Food Choice 3: Healthy Heart Promise instead of butter or margarine. When my family member's new heart diet called for a switch away (far away) from margarine and butter to Promise Healthy Heart Light because of the cholesterol, and fat (including trans fat) differences, I went along with it. I can't taste the difference, to be honest, and when I see the differences (30 mgs of cholesterol in butter to 0 in Promise) I consider it a good switch. Plus, they add in Omega 3 and Omega 6. I really don't know what the benefits of those two things are, but they're in there.

Healthier Food Choice 4: Pretzels instead of chips. I've always been a big fan of chips and snack crackers (like Cheezits), but when you look at the nutritional content, well, you're not doing yourself any health favors eating too much of that stuff. If you like a salty, crunch snack but don't want the craving to be your downfall, try pretzels instead. Not only do pretzel sticks make serving size easy to gauge, but they're good! Yeah, watch the salt, watch the pretzels with different flavors added (Combos and plain pretzels are not the same...) And, yes, I know about the carbs. It would be much better to eat an apple instead, but I'm trying to be realistic here! If you're going to reach for something, go for the thing with less heart unhealthy fats.

Healthier Food Choice 5: Healthy Choice brand Hotdogs instead of the real deal. I know, what the heck is so healthy about a hot dog? Sodium anyone? All I know is Healthy Choice makes beef franks with a gram of saturated fat while some famous name brands have about five times that and 100 more calories. So if you're going to go dog, go low-fat dog. And again, they're really good. I'm sure some wiener connoisseurs out there would be able to tell the difference, but I really can't.

Healthier Food Choice 6: Fat free pudding instead of a candy bar. I don't want to say something cliché about women and chocolate, but, there's some truth to every stereotype, and cutting chocolate out of my eating regiment: not gonna happen. And isn't it supposed to be healthy? Well, of course it comes down again to portion control. But at 200-250 calories or so a pop(that shocked me...), and too much saturated fat, candy bars stopped being a suitable snack. I find that getting my chocolate fix from a cup of Jello or other brand fat-free pudding is just as satisfying as wolfing down a candy bar. The pudding is delicious, comes in a nice portion all set for you, and, of course, there's no harm in throwing on a little low fat whipped topping now and then.

Healthier Food Choice 7: Hershey's Kisses instead of candy bars. Here's another candy bar switch out: try some Hershey's kisses. A serving size is nine pieces. Well, instead of having nine kisses, three to satisfy your sweet tooth and move on. I guess it's the same as cutting a candy bar into little pieces, but it seems more convenient when they do it for you, doesn't it? I find this a very satisfying chocolate fix.

Healthier choice 8: Lettuce and tomato instead of nothing. I am not a big veggie eater. As much as I am trying to eat healthier, I'm not at that steamed broccoli every day stage quite yet. One way I've found to add vegetables to my daily intake (well, not that I do this every day...) is simply to add salad to my sandwiches. Instead of putting nothing (or let's face it, potato chips) into my tuna or turkey or whatever kind of sandwich, I throw in some lettuce and tomato, maybe some onion. Get fancy and add bean sprouts. Go nuts! The trick is to go from a vegetable (or fruit, since tomatoes are technically fruits) -free lunch to a lunch with even more health value added in.

Healthier choice 9: Special K instead of cereal with table sugar. This has been my most recent choice. I have a tendency to take a perfectly good bowl of say, Cheerios or Raisin Bran and take the nutritional value way down by adding a couple spoonfuls of sugar. This is not a good way to lose weight or improve health. So, I bought some Special K with some kind of strawberries or something in it and it's sweet already, sweet to the point that I couldn't eat it with any added sugar. So, I'm saving myself some calories early in the morning. I think eventually I will wean myself from this particular cereal and go back to Cheerios, just adding fresh fruit instead of sugar. But for right now, it's working as a nice cheat.

Good luck pursuing whatever your health goals may be! It's not easy to lose weight or change habits, but I'm living proof that little steps can be manageable and make a big difference!