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Balancing different types of food

Learn how to balance foods to eat all of the time and foods to eat some of the time.

Ellie Brewer

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Our goal at Rise is to help you learn how to live a sustainable, healthy lifestyle, and that includes finding balance in your nutrition. One of the most important things to recognize when developing a healthier lifestyle is that food is so much more than fuel. It is also tied to memories, special occasions, family, friends, and feelings of home. When we choose foods, we aren’t just choosing them for the nutritional content, we are choosing them based on a variety of reasons, including taste, memories, accessibility, cost, and the people around us when we eat. 

We want to help you learn how to eat a healthy diet full of whole foods that will keep you fueled and powered 80% of the time; and show you how to include “sometimes foods” that fuel your soul 20% of the time. Let’s talk about some ways to find balance in your diet.

First let’s talk about some tips to include more whole foods in your day. For the next week, try including at least one food from each category every day. These can be thought of as “always foods,” and are foods we should aim to eat every single day. There are many more foods to choose from in each category, but here are some examples to get you started:

  • Whole grain

    • Whole wheat pasta

    • Chickpea pasta

    • Whole grain bread/hamburger buns/hotdog buns

    • Whole wheat tortillas

  • Lean Protein

    • Skim milk

    • Low fat yogurt

    • Chicken

    • Turkey

    • Beans

    • Plant-based meat alternative (Chick’n, Daring, Gardein)

    • Low fat cottage cheese

  • Fruit

    • Pineapples

    • Grapes

    • Blueberries

    • Raspberries

    • Blackberries

    • Bananas

    • Apples

  • Vegetables

    • Carrots

    • Spinach

    • Bell peppers

    • Broccoli

    • Corn

    • Potatoes

    • Cucumber

Now let’s talk about “sometimes foods,” or foods that fuel our souls. We certainly want to include these foods in our life, since they are often tied to good memories, special occasions, fun times with friends and family, and give us warm fuzzy feelings, but we don’t want to eat them as often as the “always foods” we talked about earlier. Here are some tips for including “sometimes foods” in your life without overindulging in them.

  • Buy single serving bags. Say you LOVE Cheetos. When you open the huge bag from Costco, you end up eating half of it in one sitting and don’t feel very good for the rest of the day. Try buying smaller bags and limiting yourself to eating one bag a day, or buy the huge bag and split it into Ziploc bags that contain a single serving. 

  • Eat an “always food” before you eat a “sometimes food.” Say you’re really hungry and you love muffins. You just baked a fresh batch, but while you were baking you skipped lunch and decided to have a muffin once they were done. Instead of having just one, you ate four or five because you were so hungry. Next time, try eating a high protein snack while you are baking, so when the muffins come out of the oven, you aren’t starving and are able to slow down and enjoy just one muffin. 

  • Include an “always food” when you eat out. For many of us, eating out is one of the hardest things to navigate when developing a healthy lifestyle and relationship with food. We can never know exactly what is in the dishes at restaurants, and because the food tastes so good, we usually eat more than we normally would at home. When you are eating out, take time to really enjoy where you are and the food you are eating. You don’t have to get the healthiest thing on the menu, but choose at least one “always food” to include with your meal. This could look like getting a side salad in addition to fries with your sandwich, including broccoli with your steak and mashed potatoes, or asking for a side of steamed veggies with your pasta. The “always foods” will help you feel full and sustain your energy levels throughout the day. 

We want to help you build a sustainable healthy lifestyle that works for you, and the biggest thing to remember is that if you overeat or eat a lot of “sometimes foods” in one day, just take a breath, reset, and get back to eating a balanced variety of foods tomorrow. Try some of these tips out, and let us know what you think or some tips that work well for you. Want to learn more about nutrition, meal planning, and how to make food choices that work for your lifestyle? Set up a free meeting with our team here to see how we can help.