If you’ve resolved to eat healthier this year but are finding it difficult to do so, then you’ll appreciate the following tips and stories from our bloggers.

Here’s a healthy meal that Alisa, The Meat and Potatoes Foodie, put together under an hour. It has texture, flavor and it creatively makes use of chicken breast! Who says chicken breast has to be served plain, anyway?

Alisa knows eating right isn’t about completely restricting yourself, your food can have flavor and still be healthy, let’s check out her story!

I have never been a good dieter. In fact, the few times I attempted dieting in my life directly correlated to me gaining weight. I would do as we’re all told - eliminate this and avoid that, etc. only to end up breaking down and scarfing down a pizza and a bucket of beer two days later. For me, putting restrictions on food was always dangerous territory.

And it’s not that shocking when you think about it. We’ve gotten so confused as a society about food, blindly jumping on the fat free bandwagon, the no carb bandwagon, etc., we’ve forgotten to use common sense. Fat isn’t evil - nor is pasta! There’s no more any ‘lethal’ food than there is a miracle one. So if I have anything worth listening to about healthier eating, it’s to use your head. Eat a lot of vegetables. Limit your sweets. Put balance ahead of worrying about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods and things will net out as they should.

It sometimes helps me to apply a ‘what have I eaten today?’ checklist. For example, if I have a salad for lunch, which I often do, then I have a green light to do have a nice well rounded dinner including a protein and vegetables, anything from roasted chicken with sauteed asparagus and some potatoes roasted with olive oil. Again - it’s not like ‘Oh I had a salad for lunch - cheese enchiladas for dinner it is!’ I use common sense. I eat a ton of roasted vegetables (Even my husband, the anti health freak, would take roasted Brussels Sprouts or asparagus over french fries any day.) And I do eat pasta - I just tend to pass up the ones drenched in a heavy cream sauce in favor of light, veggie filled olive oil based dishes. And if I’ve had a carb heavy lunch, than I’ll skip the pasta that night in lieu of something relatively low in carbs such as a turkey burger sans the bun and a salad.

Another minor revelation that helped me in my attitude towards food was getting to know my body. In my opinion, there are two types of people - grazers and meal people. For me, ‘grazing’, i.e. eating 5 to 6 small meals a day rather than 3 larger meals, led to metabolic catastrophe. I found instead of stabilizing my hunger, it jump started it. By dinner time, instead of being satiated, I was ready for a deep fried turkey! Once I finally figured out I was a ‘meal’ girl, life got so much easier.

So I eat 3 meals a day and don’t snack. If I do, I have a piece of fruit or a small bag of pretzels (common sense again), but I usually don’t have to if I keep on a schedule. Dinner is my heaviest meal in actual quantity of food, because I don’t need much for breakfast and only a salad or soup for lunch. Figure out when your body needs its biggest meal and plan accordingly.

Again, I’m not an expert or even someone you should listen to - but for me, applying balance to food and figuring out what kind of eater I was made a big difference in my life. And I hope it does yours.

Balance definitely is key. This is why enjoying a dessert every now and then can be a pleasant experience! Especially when it’s something Dhivya from Culinary Bazaar put together. Dhivya knows how to bake a delicious and lean sweet treat; she also has a few helpful tips to offer us!

1) Never eyeball the oil for cooking. Next time you reach out for cooking oil for a supposedly healthy stir fry, take a measuring spoon to do so. Most of time you would find that so called little oil turns out to be much more than 2-3 tbsp. For most vegetable stir fries, 1/2 tsp of oil is sufficient.

2) Next time you fill out some water to boil, reconsider. Use the steamer instead. Less contact with water, more the nutrition.
Example : Mashed Potatoes can be made equally yummy by steaming the potatoes instead of boiling.

3) Adding lentils and legumes to the diet is not only healthy but also heavy in protein but low in fat. Such proteins fill us faster making us eat less and also not worry about calories since they are very low in bad calories.

4) Desserts need not be avoided. Little substitutions like using honey instead of sugar, using egg whites instead of whole eggs, using whole wheat pastry flour instead of plain refined flour makes a huge difference.

Here are a few more of Dhivya’s desserts:
Sakkara Pongal: Traditional South Indian Sweet Lentil and Milk Stew

Poli: Sweet South Indian Flatbread