5 Tips for Making Healthy Eating More Flexible

Nutrition is an important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but it is important that 
you remain flexible and don’t make your diet too strict. When it is overly restrictive with a 
long list of rules, it makes it a lot harder to stick to. The best chance you have for long-
term success with healthy living is to make your diet as flexible as possible.

Here are 7 helpful tips to have a flexible, healthy, and enjoyable diet every day.


1. Add to Your Meals, Don’t Restrict Them

This is perhaps one of the best things you can do when you want to eat healthier, but 
still enjoy your meals and not feel like you are being too strict. Instead of focusing on 
what to take out of your meals to make them healthier, think about what you should add 
to them. 

For example, if you still want to eat your macaroni and cheese, go ahead and eat it! 
Don’t restrict one of your favorite foods. Instead, make it healthier by adding to it, such 
as adding grilled chicken breast and broccoli to your bowl. You have now made it higher 
in protein with more vitamins, but you are still able to enjoy it.


2. Create a Simple Method for Balanced Meals

Another quick tip for more flexibility is instead of having the same meal every night that 
you consider “healthy”, go for a method of putting balanced, healthy meals together. For 
example, a good method is to split up your dinner into a protein, a carb, and a 
vegetable. Depending on your needs with your diet, you can choose your own method 
or formula, as long as it helps you create more balance with the different nutrients you 
need for energy and vitality.


3. Try the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule is used by many people as a way to eat primarily healthy, nutrient-dense 
meals, but also save some room for treats and foods you really enjoy that might be a 
little out of the traditional scope of “nutritious”. 

With the 80/20 rule, 0% of your meals are healthy, balanced, and nutrient-dense, while 
the remaining 20% of the foods you eat are often considered treats or more indulgent 
foods. This might look like a dessert every evening while the rest of your day is healthy 
foods, or perhaps one morning you go to a local café for an espresso and a Danish, so 
the rest of your day is packed with vitamins and minerals.


4. Eat the Nutrient-Dense Foods First

A little trick for eating the foods you want, but still having balance and nutrition in your 
life, is to sit down at every meal and eat the most nutrient-dense foods first. Look at your 
meal, and choose to eat the foods with more nutritional value first, such as your salmon 
or chicken, your side salad, or your veggies. Then, if you are still hungry, enjoy the rest 
of your meal. Some days, you might eat everything, while other days you only eat a little 
bit of the less nutrient-dense foods. That way, you feel like you are eating a healthy diet, 
without restricting, but you still have some flexibility.


5. Have a List of Healthier Options for Eating Out

To further offer more flexibility into your diet, consider the healthier options when you eat 
out. If you want to be flexible with your healthy living, then you are not going to eat 
100% of your meals at home. That is unreasonable and unsustainable. But what you 
can do is rethink how you eat when you do go out.





