Have you been wanting to start eating healthy to lose weight, but are not quite sure how to get started?

Perhaps you have been ready to make a change for a while now, but the thought of starting your weight loss journey seems daunting…

But starting a healthy new diet doesn’t have to be overwhelming. As a matter of fact, if you have the right mindset and plan, you can begin your transformation with complete confidence.

The day when you decide to start losing weight and eating healthy is a very exciting day, because when you have decided to focus on healthy eating as your main method for weight loss, that means that with consistent dedication… amazing things are right around the corner.

By transitioning to a diet filled with much healthier foods than your current diet, you will decrease your daily calorie consumption while at the same time increasing your useful nutrient intake, which means losing weight without having to be hungry!

If you make the decision to start now, and dedicate to making just a few easy changes… today truly can be the day that you begin the process of improving your body, diet, and life forever.

So if you are ready to make today the first day of your transformation, I will tell you exactly how to start eating healthy to lose weight, and how stay on track after you do start!

As there are several points mentioned here, and I will mark the most important steps that you should plan on doing ASAP, as “Action Steps”, so that you know exactly what to focus on first.

Action Step 1- Make a shopping list

Making a healthy shopping list is absolutely essential for starting your healthy diet.

There are so many ways that taking this preparation step will help you start your weight loss transformation strong.

When you make a shopping list before you go to the store, you walk in with confidence, knowing exactly what you want to buy and what you do NOT want to buy… rather than having to go through the stress of totally revamping your diet while you are feeling rushed out in public.

When you visit the store still keep an open eye for new healthy foods that you may not have thought of before going (this is how I discover many new tasty healthy foods), but before you go make sure you have some healthy selections ready that you already know you will like, and that you will dedicate to buying and eating as you begin losing weight.

The important thing is to not completely crush your old diet and bring in 100% new healthy foods… it’s to make a significant improvement that you can dedicate to consistently, and feel confident about.

Add several new healthy items to your list (I will help you with this below), and maybe cross a couple unhealthy ones off as well. Or you can do what I did with junk food when I lost 80 pounds, and simply buy smaller quantities of the unhealthy foods over time so that you don’t have to completely give up something that you love overnight.

Either way, trust in the power of healthy eating and let the healthy food do the work. Don’t make your shopping trip about restriction, make it about abundance.

Much the same, considering your journey on a grander scale, don’t make your mindset for weight loss itself all about restrictions.

You can make a far bigger impact on your fat loss results in a much easier way by simply focusing on ADDING healthy foods into your diet. Everything else will fall into place much more naturally with this method/mindset.

So, make a improved version of your shopping list today, and you’ll have your very own written plan to get started with!

Select a variety of healthy foods

Choosing a wide selection of healthy foods is important for a couple of reasons.

First, you want to make sure that you are filling your body with a good balance of nutrients so that you are effectively satisfying your hunger and cravings.

But choosing different types of healthy foods will also make sure that you don’t get bored with your diet, and give you a wide range of different flavors and textures to choose from throughout the day.

Action Step 2- Focus on whole foods first

Whole foods are as good as it gets for weight loss.

Once you know what they are and how amazing they are for burning fat, the whole concept of healthy weight loss becomes much more friendly and easy to understand.

So what are whole foods?

Whole foods are simply foods that are in their most natural form.

These are the foods that you can find growing and living in nature.

Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and even meat… these are all whole foods.

As these natural foods have not been modified or processed before arriving at the store… they still contain all of their original and amazingly satisfying nutrients, they digest slowly without spiking insulin, and are low in calories especially when compared to the highly processed and modified foods that we normally consume in our modern diets.

Eating more whole foods reduces your daily calorie consumption while increasing your valuable nutrient intake, which means losing weight without having to be hungry.

One of the most popular whole food combinations for weight loss is chicken and brown rice. You will hear from lots of people including myself, who used this as their simple go-to meal for losing weight with healthy foods.

If you really want to take that meal to the next level and make it dense in nutrients and light light in calories, add broccoli! Adding vegetables into my diet was something that took me a long time to do because I have always been a picky eater, but it made a huge difference when I did.

Make sure you select brown rice over white rice. That very simple choice will help you lose weight rather than gain it… as brown rice digests slowly and has useful nutrients, giving you stable energy that can be utilized rather than stored as fat.

Though white rice seems like a “whole” food, it has been stripped of its outer bran layer, which has all of the valuable nutrients and is what helps brown rice digest slowly. Without it, white rice is basically just “empty calories”.

There is an incredibly huge selection of whole foods to choose from, but when you are just beginning to eat healthy it’s nice to have some familiar healthy foods that you can get started with right away.

Here is an article which will give you 5 super healthy, very familiar whole food options to start your healthy weight loss diet with.

Make healthy trades

Whole foods should be your main focus for losing weight, but you can also make a huge reduction on your daily calorie consumption by looking for healthier versions of your favorite products, even if some of them have been processed (modified).

Although completely unprocessed whole grains like brown rice and oats would be the best choice as far as grains go… when you buy things like bread and pasta, buying the whole wheat version will make your selection much healthier and more beneficial to reaching your weight loss goals.

Whole wheat products contain WAY more protein and fiber, and will satisfy you on a nutritional level so that you can eat less while feeling just as full.

Look on the back of a package of white bread at the fiber/protein content. It will usually say that a slice of bread has, “<1g” (less than 1 gram), where a slice of whole grain/ whole wheat bread might have 4-8 grams of protein or fiber.

That seemingly small change makes a tremendous difference. Even though whole foods would be an even better choice… making this change from white to wheat will help you start you losing weight.

Look for other types of healthy breads as well such as those made of oat bran and flax.

Things like cereal, peanut butter, jelly, and even juice, may not be the best type of selections to focus on as your main method, but choosing the correct brand/type can make a gigantic difference in your daily sugar/calorie consumption.

There are some all-natural versions of products out there that have a much healthier ingredient list and nutrient ratio, and all you have to do is look for them as they are usually right next to the unhealthier version.

Products that claim to be “all-natural” should have a short list of familiar ingredients on their label, none of which should look like chemical names that you have never heard of.

Though the ingredients are the most important concern, the nutrition facts are also very valuable to see, as they will give you a quick glance at the ratio of good/bad nutrients you are getting. However you’ll notice that these two things are tied together fairly tightly. With healthy ingredients come a good nutrient ratio.

Protein, fiber, and unsaturated fats are good. You want lots of those nutrients with as few calories as possible… and with concern to refined and processed carbs you also want to limit those as much as you consistently can as well.

But don’t make carbs the enemy! Carbohydrate sources from whole foods like fruit, oats, and brown rice are actually beneficial to your weight loss efforts, rather than working against them.

If you want to read about the research that supports this and the importance of nutrient BALANCE for weight loss, check out my article, “Escaping Obesity in America with Healthy Foods“.

Though it may be far better to eat a piece of fruit than drink a cup of fruit juice, the fact is that if you are in a transitional stage where you know you are going to buy it/ drink it, then choosing a juice that is made from real fruit over one that is basically colored sugar water will also make a positive difference.

Even though the best cereal is nothing compared to whole foods, the difference between choosing a cereal that is made of sugar and puffed up empty carbs… vs one that is made with natural and nutritious ingredients, is incredible!

As I improved my diet when I was losing weight, I made healthy trades like this in addition to adding whole foods into my diet. As time passes, my diet gets healthier and is composed of more whole foods, but I still like to have wheat pasta or a bit of peanut butter here and there!

Buy small amounts of new foods

It’s important to try new healthy foods so that you can find the ones that you love, and have a variety of healthy weight loss options at your disposal.

Sometimes you will love what you bought, and sometimes you won’t like the new food that you decided to try. But don’t let one healthy food that tastes bad let you lose your momentum.

I have learned to buy a very small amount of something that is new to me, when I’m not sure if I will like or not… and that way if I end up not liking it, I won’t feel pressured to eat the rest of it or feel guilty for throwing it out.

Then, when I find a healthy food or combination of healthy foods that I do like, I know that I can buy it confidently in a larger amount the next time I go to the store.

Action Step 3- Start cooking!

This step sounds so obvious, but this is where so many people lose their steam right away when they are starting a healthy diet. You’ve got to start cooking that healthy food to really get things moving for yourself, with concern to getting actual results and the building of your habits.

Put a pot of water on to boil for brown rice, slice some chicken to put into the over, steam some broccoli, and start working on the new improved version of you!

You may have also bought some healthy items that do not require cooking… but when it comes down to seriously eating healthy on a consistent basis with full-blown balanced meals, you must develop a cooking habit.

In time cooking becomes more and more fun, as you discover more foods, spices, and combinations that you enjoy.

So don’t just shove that food into the cabinets, get it into your belly!

Once you see with your own eyes, the connection between cooking/eating healthy foods and your slimming body, that in itself will be plenty of motivation to continue your healthy habits.

Cook in bulk for foods that you love

This isn’t a step that you absolutely have to do on your first day, but many people still find this to be an important key to successfully changing their diet, as it allows them to have healthy options readily available at all times.

Convenience is a huge factor in why we make many of our food decisions.

It’s not just about how easy it is to grab the closest thing… it’s about how much extra willpower it takes to make the healthy choice when your fridge is empty and it will take an hour to make a healthy meal.

But if you cook in bulk with foods that you love and know that you will be cooking over and over again, you can save yourself lots of time, lots of dish washing sessions, and lots of times when you get hungry without any healthy food readily available.

Keys to cooking in bulk are:

#1- Having a pot/pan big enough to cook more food with…

#2- Freezing excess foods in portion sized containers

#3- As an added bonus, full-blown meal prepping to add an extra layer of convenience, so that the food is not only already cooked for you but organized into ready-to-go meals.

Dedicate to being consistent, not perfect

As you begin your new weight loss journey and begin building healthy eating habits, get in the mindset of focusing on making consistent improvements, instead of feeling the need to be perfect.

Rather than trying to completely transform your diet in a single day, and coming home from the store with only the healthiest foods… give yourself time to make gradual improvements, and room to live a normal life with occasional indulgences.

Start at a pace that you know you will be able to maintain consistently, and then after you get used to the healthy changes that you initially made, you will be able to confidently make another improvement without overwhelming yourself.

It’s normal to want to start with perfection, because we want to do the absolute best that we can for ourselves… but in reality the best thing that we can do to assure our own success is by making consistent progress, no matter the pace.

Transitioning from an unhealthy diet to a natural and healthy diet is an extremely powerful thing, and just a little goes a long way when you are just starting to eat healthy with the goal of losing weight.

You will be amazed at what can happen from just adding one healthy meal to your diet every day.

With the addition of a well-balanced, super healthy meal, you immediately flood your body with nourishment and begin to replace the space in your stomach and the cravings that you have for unhealthy food.

When I finally began my successful weight loss transformation with healthy food, I realized that if I kept trying to be perfect all of the time I was never going to be able to sustain my routine long enough to get significant results.

I realized that in previous times when I failed to lose weight, even when I did it the right way with healthy eating, the problem wasn’t that I was not trying hard enough to see results… it was that I expected so much out of myself, and I could never maintain healthy changes long enough to see the results add up.

So I dedicated to making consistent improvements after it finally clicked with me, that I would eventually reach my destination if I just kept walking down the right path.

I continually improved my diet in small steps, which led to me losing weight faster and faster, and eventually losing 80 pounds.

Instead of thinking everyday of all of the unhealthy things you ate, the cravings you struggled with, and how much you feel like you messed up… think of each good change that you make and what an improvement it is over your previous habits.

If you are eating more healthy food today than you were yesterday or last week, it means that you are consuming less unhealthy food as well, which all adds up to a day filled with more nutrients and fewer calories i.e. losing weight without being hungry.

So on this new start to your healthy weight loss journey, let go of the stressful perfection mindset and get excited for what’s to come when you simply dedicate to consistency.

Look forward to the new, healthy you

Now that you know how to start eating healthy to lose weight, it’s time to take what you know and put it into action!

If you start your journey today and dedicate to consistency as mentioned above, there are amazing weight loss rewards that you can confidently look forward to experiencing in short time.

Seriously consider the fact that you can look completely different, and start feeling amazing about yourself if you stick to your plan.

Think about how great it will be to actually achieve your goals… and even take the time to envision the future vision of yourself.

Visualizing your success can be incredibly motivating, and when done frequently can give you the ongoing willpower that you need to make permanent lifestyle changes, which will lead to you directly to your goal weight.

So start bringing more healthy foods into your life today and be excited for the amazing things to come!

If you are feeling motivated right now and want to start your weight loss journey with a defined plan that you can easily follow, try the 8-Week Weight Loss Challenge! The challenge will help you change your diet gradually, at a pace that will allow you to stay on track without feeling overwhelmed, and the exercise plan is structured in the same simple step-by-step way.