Principles Of Being Healthy Essay

How to Be Healthy: The 6 Basic Principles
I spent a lot of time wondering how to be healthy when I was obese. I wondered why my siblings were normal and thin. I wondered why I was different and fat. I wondered ‘What am I doing wrong? How can I be healthy?’
This thought bounced around in my little brain for almost 10 years.
Lucky for me, I finally learned how to be healthy. It took longer than I would’ve liked but I don’t regret my journey. Learning what being healthy means made me the person I am today.
I gradually made small changes to my life. The small changes slowly added up and began to form these six principles.
Here are the basics on how to be healthy.
What does it mean to be healthy?
What does it mean to be eat healthy?
The sheer

Funny how chocolate is the last ingredient in Oreos.
The food you eat makes you healthy
Eating healthy means focusing on eating whole, minimally processed plant foods. I call this a whole-food plant based (WFPB) diet.
It’s comforting to eat vegan butter, cheese, and meat to transition away from animal products. Unfortunately, none of these foods promote health. They’re only slightly better than their counterparts.
Vegan replacements have no cholesterol. On the other hand, they’re processed and often contain flavorings, additives and refined ingredients. All of this turns a healthy plant into empty calories.
I definitely had a hard time with this one. If you’ve read my story, I was all about labels for longer than I care to admit. At first I tried being vegan. Then I went into raw veganism. After that it was raw ‘til 4. I was obsessed with labeling my diet. I thought one of these labels would help me lose weight and make me happy.
Boy was I

Instead, focus on eating high-carbohydrate foods, such as:
• Whole grains (wheat, corn, oats, etc.)
• Pseudo grains (quinoa, buckwheat, etc.)
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc.)
• Fruits
• Vegetables
There are a few exceptions to each food group. For example, legumes like peanuts and soy are high in fat. And avocados—a fruit—are high in fat, too. But as long as you stick to the typical foods I’ve outlined above, you’ll eat a diet rich in carbohydrates.
> Read more about Macronutrients in my article Macronutrients—Everything You Need to Know (and more). It’ll give you a run-down of each macronutrient and why they’re important.
Fat is addicting
I had a tough time reducing my fat when I went vegan. At first I at loads of tofu, peanut butter, added oil and soy milk. When I switched to raw veganism, I ate way too much oil, nuts and seeds.
It took a while for my taste buds to adjust to eating a high carb, low fat diet. But after I made the switch, high fat meals felt uncomfortably heavy on my tongue and stomach.
Fat is addicting. We love fat because it’s uncommon and signifies food that’s loaded with calories.
> Fat is more than twice as calorically dense as carbohydrates. Fat has 9 calories per gram. Carbs have just