When I started my journey to become healthier, I weighed over 320 pounds. I have maintained at 70 pounds less for several years now. I don't like to say that I am trying to lose weight, but it's probably not for the reason you think. When I lose something, I think that my thoughts are ingrained, that the item that is lost needs to be found again. We lose our keys and try to find them. We lose our wallet, and we search and search until we find it. I am very afraid that since I am so good at finding things, like my keys and my wallet, that I will be really good at finding the weight I have lost, so I just try to choose to become more healthy each day.

My 7 Healthy Eating Tips are:

1. Read all labels. Prepared, packaged foods often depend upon sugar, salt or corn syrup to help them taste better. When I first started reading labels, there were a lot of times when I said, “No wonder I like that food so much, it's loaded with sugar and salt!”
2. Notice how the foods you eat make you feel. A few years ago, during a class, I felt totally exhausted. I was having a hard time thinking. For me, all of the breads, cookies and preservatives in the foods had caught up with me. I had stopped eating most of it a few months before, and had thought that for the three days I was in class, it wouldn't make that much of a difference. Boy was I wrong.
3. Learn to cook healthy foods. I still eat out way more than is good for me, but I do know how to make a few basic healthy dishes like stir fries, quiche and lentil-walnut burgers. I now make my own spaghetti sauce, bread (if I am eating it at all), soups and chili. All are very healthy, and help me have healthy leftovers to reach for, instead of some of the junk foods I used to buy.
4. Eat whole grains. The more a grain is processed, the less nutritional value it has (even when nutritional value has been added back in). The companies that make the pre-packaged foods try to fool you. Many use caramel coloring to make breads look like they are whole grain, and call sugars by different names so sugar isn't listed higher on the label.
5. Buy eggs and meats from a local farmer you know or who has been referred to you. This becomes more possible, if you and some friends go together and buy beef or pork in bulk. You get a higher quality of meat; you know where it comes from and how it was raised.
6. Don't cook with plastic in the microwave. Try to use glass as much as possible. When heated, plastics have been proven to be really bad for people, health-wise.
7. Stay away from artificial sweeteners. Many of the chemical compounds aren't healthy and there isn't enough of a long-term knowledge base.

My favorite healthy quick cook is a Chicken Stir-Fry:

• Pull a frozen chicken breast out of the freezer (I buy them individually, frozen, in a large bag)
• Thaw chicken breast slightly in the microwave, then slice thinly
• Grab 2 handfuls of veggies out of a bag of bulk mixed veggies
• Thaw veggies the microwave, with any desired seasonings
• Cook meat in a wok with a drizzle of sesame oil until done
• Remove the meat from the wok
• Slice the veggies thinly and toss them into the wok
• Cook until desired consistency
•  Add any spices you like to the veggies, toss the meat back in and stir food around to help the spices set.
• Serve.