by Ronnie Dauber

Created on: May 22, 2009   Last Updated: November 04, 2009

Healthy eating behaviours are an essential component of maintaining a healthy body and should become part of the regime of a balanced diet and regular exercise. Here are five healthy eating behaviours that are easy to assume and that will allow you to eat the foods you like to keep you happy and healthy.

1. Eat five to six times a day, including meals and snacks. This allows you to have a consistent input of healthy food that the body uses as fuel to function with and to burn fat. When you only eat two or three times a day, the stretch in between meals is too long a time span and can be unhealthy.

There are several benefits to this healthy eating habit:

a) when we suffer from hunger pains in between the far spread meals, our metabolism drops, we're tired and we over-eat at the next meal to subconsciously get that metabolism back up to par.

b) we keep our stomachs stretched so that we feel like we need to eat a lot to become satisfied, and that often causes us to eat way more than we need.

c) since the body can't digest this overindulgence of food, there's no time to burn it off so it sends it right into fat cells for storage.

By eating smaller meals, the stomach stays small and the body is able to digest and burn what you put in. By the time you eat again, your stomach is empty and your body is ready to burn more. Your metabolism stays high and you've got energy and a clear mind.

2. Cut out all trans fats and saturated fats from your diet. These fats are bi-products of chemical processing and are extremely dangerous for the body. Cutting back still leaves you at risk and so they need to be completely eliminated from your diet.

These fats are known to increase the risk of coronary heart disease, and raise the bad LDL cholesterol levels while lowering the good HDL cholesterol, creating a cholesterol imbalance. As well, it increases your risk of high blood pressure, narrowing of the arteries and heart attack and stroke.

These fats are found mostly in processed or packaged foods.

3. Eat plenty of white fish, lean chicken, fresh fruit and raw vegetables. These provide an abundance of fibre along with other valuable nutrients including protein, Omega 3 (fatty acids) and most of the necessary daily vitamins.

The fruits and veggies can be mixed and matched, eaten raw or steamed and make delicious snacks and meal components with the meat. They help to keep your metabolism high and aid in burning fat.

4. Begin your day with fresh flesh fruit

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