8 Tips For Healthier Eating

Eating right can be confusing nowadays. With all the information out there, it’s hard to know if you should be eating more vegetables or more vegans, if gluten is good for you or a CIA plot, or what kind of Paleo coconut oil is right for your dog. So how do you navigate all this and lose weight? Here are a few tips that will help you make sense of the stuff you’ve been reading in your social media feeds:

1. Say “just” before you order food in a restaurant
This makes the meal seem smaller.
ex. “I’ll just have the appetizer sampler and a full rack of ribs with a baked potato and the soup.”
ex. “I’ll just have a grande vanilla latte and four croissants.”

2. Eat plenty of fruit-flavored foods
Sure, fruit is great for you and all, but who has the time to bite into and masticate an entire apple these days? Or peel an orange, holy shit, what do you think, like I’m going to cut into my Netflix time or put down my phone so I can use both hands? Come on.

Start with foods with subtle fruit flavors, like Crunch Berries and Fruity Pebbles (or both mixed together in the same bowl). Then you can move onto things like Pop-Tarts, Fruit Roll-Ups, and Vitamin Water. I think I read somewhere that eating two Strawberry Pop-Tarts is equivalent to eating half of a real strawberry [citation needed].

Also look for processed foods that contain “real fruit.” They should be a few aisles away from the fruit section of the grocery store, which also contains real fruit, which is as previously mentioned, a real pain in the ass to eat.

3. Portion sizes
American restaurant menu portions are approximately the size of meals you should be eating. For example, the Applebee’s entree 4-Cheese Mac & Cheese with Honey Pepper Chicken Tenders is 1700 calories, which might sound like a lot to eat for dinner right before you sleep for eight hours. But what if you wake up tomorrow and run ten miles before breakfast? You’re sure as shit not going to do that on some wimpy salad, are you?

If you’re eating at home, make sure to keep an eye on the size of your portions. For example, most doctors recommend that if you’re eating red meat, the portion should be no larger than your own head.

4. Buy your potato chips from Whole Foods or another trusted health food store
I feel so much better about myself after smashing an entire bag of chips from Whole Foods than I do smashing an entire bag of Cool Ranch Doritos from some store that doesn’t care about my well-being. OK, I guess Tip #4 is purely anecdotal, but try it sometime and see how you feel.

Whole Foods also has a cookie bar where you pay by the pound, which is pretty awesome after you’ve had an emotional day and you need to replenish nutrients.

5. Eat some vegetables with your meat
Fact: Many nutrients are fat-soluble, and vegetables contain nutrients, so it’s good to prepare them with some sort of fat, like olive oil, coconut oil, or several strips of bacon. Are you doing the right thing for yourself and eating a brussels sprout? Good for you—wash it down with some sort of pork product, like a Wendy’s Baconator or a Slim Jim.

6. If you’re at a movie theater, make sure you eat
They have stuff that is good for you at the movies. It’s going to be a long two- to two-and-a-half hours before you eat again, so get the five-gallon bucket of popcorn and the one-gallon bucket of Coke (See Tip #7), Try to get the seats with the tray on the armrest so you can just pour the popcorn and soda into your face instead of having to use your hands. Otherwise how in the hell are you going to finish all five gallons of popcorn before the end of the movie, seriously.

7. Drink Coca-Cola
Fact: Water contains no nutrients. Coke has chemicals your body craves, as well as the sugar you need to grow love handles and man-boobs—and as they say, you can’t get soft without soft drinks. If you’re at a fast-food restaurant, try to wash down your meal with at least 24 ounces of Coke, if not 32. If a restaurant offers free refills on soft drinks, try to slam the first glass of Coke before the server comes back to take your order, to maximize your caloric intake. If a restaurant doesn’t serve Coke, drink Pepsi. But never diet soda.

8. Take a mid-meal smoke break
Give your stomach a chance to catch up and create a little space for the rest of your french fries, or your friend’s french fries, or dessert. If you can’t smoke, vape, which was invented for a scene in Star Wars Episode IV and has been proven to be healthier than cigarettes, according to a guy I talked to at the bus stop last week.

-Brendan