How can I stop eating extra foods?

How to stop eating processed foods with preservatives/additives?

• Im 16 and I really want to change my life around. My family eats a lot of processed foods and I want to quit and eat healthy (organic?). But because ive eaten like crap for so long, I dont know how to 'bounce back'. I am aware what some of the things I eat are unhealthy but its food. My parents are willing to buy food for me and my sister (she wants to stop as well) but we dont really know much to do. We know preservatives but we dont know what to get for healthy. Fruits veggies yes yes but we dont know what to do for actual MEALS. And they cant be too complex either..we both have school still and its hard to find time to beat out big recipes. My plan so far is to eat cereals for breakfasts and salads every now and then, but i need meat. I lOVE chicken but idk how to cook it and with what variety? I dont want it to be boring because this is to become a lifestyle to me. i will eat things that my parents bring now and then but if its preservative i dont want it in my mouth at all. My real question is what can i replace these preservative foods with? The reasons i still eat it is because it is available and its easy to cook... help :( btw cereals and salads are a step up from what i am eating now.

• Answer:

  You will want to make slow changes to your diet. If you change it too fast you will get sick. You can make several changes a month to a few weeks. I recommend making effort to ease into a nutrition plan from a program like P90X or Insanity, and then start the program when you can follow it 80-100% P90X has a nutrition guide that also includes recipes that are really good and healthy too and you eat meat every day in the program because meats are good as long as they are lean and low in sodium and other additives. As a general rule you can use to start: fewer ingredients often translates to healthier. If it has 37 ingredients it is not food, it is a science experiment. Blueberries = 1 ingredient Unflavored Oatmeal = 1 ingredient (tastes great with just a tablespoon of cinnamon- which also improves the glycemic index of food) Fat free Ranch dressing= 37- ingredients Basic bread= flour, yeast, sugar, salt, oil = 5 ingredients.