As the new year comes around it brings with it new goals, opportunities, plans and motivation. Start this year off on the right foot with your nutrition and health with these simple tips!

Set Realistic Goals!

This is something that we truly believe in here at GourmetFuel. Your goals should be tailored to you, your body and your lifestyle. What works for somebody else may not work for you, so take some time to jot down a few goals that are realistic and maintainable for you!

Start Slow

If you are trying out a new healthy eating routine, weight loss journey or exercise routine try to start off slow. Don’t dive in straight away. If it's a healthy eating routine that you want to achieve, cutting out food groups or limiting your daily caloric intake too drastically is not realistic and it becomes very hard to stick to this new routine.

Instead, make small, simple swaps with your food choices and don’t limit yourself too much at the beginning. Get a feel for this new routine and then as the weeks progress you can make bigger changes and see how you and your body react.

Looking for healthy food swaps?

• Switch up your pasta, rice and bread and opt for wholemeal options
• Aim to have a portion of fruit and veg with most meals
• Try to choose high fibre and high protein snacks such as nuts, a handful of fruit, hummus and veg sticks or banana on a slice of brown bread instead of high sugar and high fat ones.

Plan, Plan, Plan

This new lifestyle or routine is going to be a journey. There will be some days where you feel invincible and some days that are just tougher than others. This is where planning can really help to keep you on track. 

Meal planning is a great tool to get you through a new healthy eating lifestyle. It allows you to plan and prepare your healthy options for the week ahead. Batch cooking means that you have all your meals ready to go and it reduces the temptation to stray from your healthy diet. 

If meal planning is something that you just don’t have time for, well, that's what GourmetFuel does best. Check out our range of Healthy Meal Plans where you will find a plan that is tailored to your dietary preferences, likes and dislikes.

Stay Hydrated!

Try to drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated. This may seem like a simple one, but so many of us do not drink enough water each day. Ideally you want to consume between 2 - 2.5L of water every day, this is roughly 6-8 glasses of water. Staying hydrated ensures that our bodies perform at their best, allowing us to succeed at our goals. 

An easy way to keep up your water intake is to get a reusable water bottle and keep it with you throughout the day. Some water bottles even have measurements along the side to help you know exactly how much you're drinking. 

Get Enough Sleep

We can often get carried away with new goals and forget about something as simple as sleep. Sleep is just as important as healthy eating and exercise. From improving your productivity to helping support your overall health, getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep each night has huge benefits for your overall wellbeing. For the new year try to focus on ensuring that you are getting enough sleep. 

- If you find that you struggle to get to sleep, why not start by putting away all of your devices at least 1 hour before you go to bed as this helps to promote better sleep.

• - dietplanning
• - howtobehealthy
• - mealplanning