A rising dilemma among high school students is following through with healthy eating habits. Everyone wants to eat healthy, but sometimes we simply just can’t find the time to whip up a healthy meal, and it’s infinitely easier just to swing by a fast-food restaurant and grab a fat-concentrated dish. For times when we need to grab a quick, overly-processed meal, we can be compensating throughout the day so that one unhealthy meal is less detrimental to our overall health.
Although the optimal solution for overall health is eliminating all processed foods from our diets, that simply isn’t an option sometimes. If you begin to apply the following steps to your daily life, you will slowly become more healthy.

1. A sugary bowl of cereal like Lucky Charms, Trix or Cocoa Puffs, are not the healthiest options on the market. Try replacing these sweet breakfasts with less sugary cereals such as Special K, Kashi Blackberry Hills or original Cheerios.
2. Switch out white bread for wheat or whole grain bread. White bread has a significantly higher amount of sugar than wheat and whole grain breads.
3. Butter and margarine are consumed by Americans on a daily basis, the only problem is the fat content of these ingredients can be detrimental to one’s health. Foods with high fat concentrations often lead to clogged arteries and heighten risk for heart disease. To limit these risks, one can replace butter and margarine with the healthy alternative, olive oil. Many restaurants around the country are already rising to accommodate to this, and are serving bread with olive oil herb blends instead of butter.
4. Salads are a go to healthy snack, but they can become significantly healthier if you switch from using iceberg lettuce as a base to spinach as a base. Spinach provides consumers with calcium, and various vitamins including vitamins b, c, and d.
5. Every once and a while a sweet treat is okay, but when it comes to chocolate it’s best to have dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate because the sugar content is significantly lower. Dark chocolate is also loaded with antioxidants that protect cells from aging, chocolate has also proven to help circulation in blood vessels in recent tests.
6. Drink water instead of soda, high-sugared juices, or coffee. Not only is water pure of additives,, it can also speed up your metabolism. It’s also the best fluid to keep yourself hydrated with because it doesn’t have added salt or sugar!

Start switching your eating habits today, and you will be setting yourself up for a healthier lifestyle with less complications in the future.