1. Choose Single ingredient foods
The fewer ingredients a food has, the less processed it will be. This means it will have all of the correct naturally occurring enzymes needed for your digestive system to break it down.
Avoid things on the labels such as corn flour, E numbers, sulphites, gluten, wheat, anything with an ose/ase at the end, sugar, fat free, sugar free and even gluten free depending on the other ingredients. (The food industry is getting smarter to cover up things that make the foods we eat last longer, taste better and more addictive.
For a great resource on what the best and worst healthy foods are for you check out http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/
2. Prepare your own Food
The food industry is hugely successful as many of their foods taste good, are cheap, addictive and most importantly convenient! From my experience, the only way to get into the best possible shape is to pre prepare your own food. Whether this is using a Sunday ritual, where you do your shop, pre-cut all your veggies, pre-cook all your meat and store it all in tupper ware and food bags.
Another way is simply to invest 30-40 minutes in the evening pre preparing all your meals for the next day. It completely takes the guess work out of what to eat and when. Make healthy choices convenient for you by having them ready and at your side as much as possible, because if you don’t you will choose sub optimal foods when on the go.
3. Avoid Sugar
Think of sugar like a Legal Class A drug. It is addictive, makes you feel good and the long term damage it does to your brain, hormones and body composition are startling! It is no wonder that we have more type 2 Diabetics diagnosed everyday than ever before. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27712381
Dr Robert. H. Lustig has many videos on sugar, hormones and obesity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpIDc1htJZA
Without getting too heavily into conspiracy theories the food industry certainly have a role to play in the manufacturing and selling of these foods to us. Keep your eyes open and make smarter choices.
4. Throw out the “Bad Foods” in your kitchen
If the temptation is there you will eat "bad foods” at a moment of weakness. We have all done it, and it always seems to happen when we have embarked on our strictest self-imposed diet regime ever. Shape an environment that is condusive to a healthier you. Get rid of the cookies, chocolate and “snack foods”. These will be replaced by things like celery, but butter, hummus, nuts and your newly prepared Tupperware meals.
5. Eat the colours of the rainbow
Aim to eat as at least 2 different colours of veg with each meal. The more colours you can include in your diet each day the more phytonutrients you will be exposed to. These all have their individual benefits. For a list of some check out this link