How to Improve Your Diet for Beginners – Basics Part Two

When making any changes to our health, we must first analyze our starting point and where we want to go. Do you want to improve your bloodwork? Lose weight? Gain weight? Perform a specific lift or sport efficiently? Whatever your goal, there will be three main categories to investigate: movement, nutrition, and environment.

This article will talk about movement and the simple changes we can make to improve our health. Nothing crazy complicated, just simple changes that make a big difference.

Now, I don’t just mean snack snacks, I mean more of food and drink as a whole. The fuel on which your body runs. Everyone needs it; you can’t go very long without it; and it has more of an effect on how you live and feel than you might think. This is not an exhaustive education on nutrition obviously, but we’re going to break it down into digestible chunks (see what I did there?).

Snacks: Why They’re Important

The food we eat is digested by our body through a fairly intricate process that allows us to pull the nutrients and energy from our food and use it in our muscles, organs, and bones. If you want a more in depth look at this, Khan Academy has a great short course on it here. The foods we eat are made up of different components–a steak isn’t the same as broccoli, and they are not used in the same way in your body.

Macronutrients

All foods are made up of a combination of 3 macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates (carbs), and fats. Protein is almost worshipped in America right now, so I’d be willing to bet you have at least heard the hubbub around protein. Carbs and fats have a more demonized history with diets like Atkins and Keto telling people that carbs or fats are the enemy, respectively. I’m here to tell you that your body needs all 3 of these to function optimally. If you cut out entire groups, your body will have to figure out a way to get those required nutrients somehow, usually by pulling from itself.

Protein:

Commonly found in: Meat, eggs, dairy, tofu, beans, protein powder, fish.
What it does: Builds and repairs muscle, keeps you full, stabilizes blood sugar, supports your immune system.
Why it matters: If you eat what tastes good, you’re probably not eating much of this. Prioritizing protein helps with energy, mood, cravings, and overall strength—even if you’re not a buodybuilder.
Sidebar—saw a post the other day that said “My goals want 180 grams of protein, but my taste buds want 60 grams of protein,” and I’ve never related to anything more.

Carbohydrates—yes, sometimes sugar:

Commonly found in: Fruit, veggies, rice, oats, bread, pasta, beans, and potatoes… Also found in excess in candy, pastries, most delicious things.
What they do: Carbs are your body’s preferred source of energy—and the quickest one they can access during a workout. Also your brain likes them.
Why they matter: Carbs, who are fairly often demonized because they include sugars, are actually essential to our bodies. Learning how to eat carbs intentionally and from the right sources is key for energy and performance.

Fats—you actually need them:

Commonly found in: Avocados, olive oil, nuts, seeds, fatty fish, egg yolks…and also in most fast foods via the grease/oil they fry things in.
What they do: They support hormone health, brain function, helps you absorb certain vitamins, and makes meals more satisfying, both in taste and satiety.
Why they matter: Yeah, they’re calorie dense (9 cal per gram compared to 4 cal per gram of protein and carbs), but eaten in moderation and from good sources will help you stay full and feel better overall, especially mentally.
Sidebar—the carnivore diet helps people with mental clarity because they’re usually eating a lot of red meat…which has a lot of fat. If you went carnivore and ate exclusively chicken breast, you wouldn’t report the same mental clarity as your read-meat-eating friends.
Sidebar to the sidebar—fast food tastes SO GOOD because of the fats. These companies spend hundreds of thousands on customizing flavors and fats so that you physically can’t have just one bite. They research to make it that good.

Bottom line:
You don’t have to count every gram of every piece of food to eat healthy. But knowing what they are—and what they do—helps you make smarter decisions that actually fuel your body instead of draining it.

So now that you’ve got a simple understanding of what your food is made of, let’s get into how to actually eat in a way that’s doable, flexible, and beginner-friendly.

Keep scrolling for 5 steps that’ll help you stop overthinking and start building real habits.

How to Improve Your Nutrition TODAY

A 5-step guide to stop overthinking nutrition and finally start fueling your body.

If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t know how to eat healthy,” or “I just can’t stick to a plan,” you’re not alone.

Most of the women I work with don’t need a brand-new diet—they need a way to take all the noise and confusion and finally make eating feel simple, doable, and sustainable.

This is Part Two in my beginner series. If you’re just now stepping into healthier habits or you’ve felt stuck in the all-or-nothing loop with food, this one’s for you.
We’re not counting calories or banning carbs here—we’re learning how to eat from the ground up.

Let’s break it into 5 steps. Each one builds on the last.

Step 1: Learn to Pay Attention to What You’re Eating

AKA: “Make the unconscious, conscious.” Remember that? from that book I keep telling you to read? Maybe get it here…

Before you overhaul your meals or stress about protein, you need to get curious about what’s actually happening. This very much goes with my notes on goals and habits here—it’s hard to change habits you don’t know you have.

Immediate application: For the next 3–5 days, write down everything you eat and drink—no judgment. You can use a notebook, your phone’s notes app, or take pictures of your meals. This is about awareness, not guilt. You’re simply learning your own eating patterns—what you snack on, what times you skip meals, when you eat out of boredom, stress or loneliness.

Why it works: Seeing your habits on paper (or phone) brings awareness to what you’re doing. You can’t change something you do unconsciously, so writing it down brings it to the front of you mind and forces you to confront it.

Step 2: Swap, Don’t Restrict

AKA: Eating better means eating smarter, and sometimes that means eating more volume than you do now!

Now that you’ve noticed a few patterns, it’s time to make your first gentle shift. Not everything, not perfectly—just one intentional swap.

Immediate application: Choose one food or drink from your log that doesn’t make you feel great.

Replace it with a version that supports your goals and still tastes good.

Examples:

Chips → air-popped popcorn or crunchy carrots and hummus or ranch
Soda → sparkling water, diet or sugar-free soda, or water with flavoring added
Candy → dark chocolate square, fruit, or even gum

Why it works: You’re not depriving yourself, you’re habit swapping. This is about unlinking the cue with the reward or detaching that habitual or unconscious connection. My personal one is loneliness or rejection = donuts or a milkshake. Swapped it for a sugar free root beer.

Step 3: Add Color to Your Plate to Eat More

If you’re overeating because “you’re so hungry,” let me give you a solution. Eat more volume. Honestly, I’ve told clients in the past that they can eat as many raw veggies as they want. A limitless amount. I’m confident saying that because they’re so low in calories and fill you up so much that most people would be physically unable to eat in a caloric surplus with things like carrots, celery, and broccoli.

Adding fruits and veggies not only fills you up so you eat less calories, but they also provide vitamins and minerals and energy to your body and mind.

Immediate application: Add one serving of fruit or vegetables to your day. That’s it.

Try:

Side salad with dinner
Berries in your oatmeal or yogurt
Spinach in your eggs
A handful of baby carrots at lunch
Vanilla greek yogurt with berries and honey as an after-dinner snack (my favorite)

Why it works: Adding color helps you crowd out processed food without even trying. And once you get used to it, you’ll actually start craving those fresher options. One serving becomes two. Two becomes four. But it starts with one.

One of my favorite client stories was that someone gave her and her husband a dozen donuts. She had two bites of one, realized she didn’t like the way it tasted anymore, and gave them away at work instead of finishing them all. <3

Step 4: Prioritize Protein (START HERE EDITING)

Most American women don’t eat enough protein—then wonder why they’re tired, constantly hungry, or craving sugar every afternoon. Protein is the anchor of every good meal. It keeps you full, helps regulate blood sugar, and supports muscle (even if you’re not lifting weights yet). This feeling of under-eating protein is probably where the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” saying came from. Having protein earlier in the day will keep you fuller longer, and can help stave off the afternoon munchies.

Immediate application:

Pick two meals and make protein the first thing you build around.
Try:
- Eggs or Greek yogurt at breakfast
- Chicken, tuna, beans, or tofu at lunch or dinner
- Add a scoop of protein to smoothies or oats

Why it works:
When you build your meal around protein, everything else works with it. And if you eat that protein first, you’ll fill up faster, making you eat less overall. You’ll feel fuller longer, which makes it easier to stop snacking at night or reaching for sugar midday.

Step 5: Learn to Reflect and Adjust

AKA: This isn’t about getting it perfect—it’s about learning what works for you.

The most overlooked part of eating healthy? Reflection. Without it, we keep starting over every Monday. With it, we build real habits. This is a large reason why many people fail. They “try” something for a month, and it doesn’t work, so they just move on to the next thing. In reality, if they tracked, then reflected upon their progress, they were really only consistent for 5-10 of 30 days.

Immediate application: Once a week, check in with yourself. Ask:

What felt easy this week?
What tripped me up?
Did I feel better—physically, mentally, emotionally?
What’s the next small step I can take?

Why it works:
Reflection turns effort into habit. It gives you permission to tweak, improve, or even back off when needed—without quitting. Remember how we made the unconscious, conscious? This is the key shaping those habits we observed into habits that push us in the direction we want to go.

Let’s Recap – Your 5 Steps to Learn How to Eat:

Step	What You’re Learning
1	Awareness: Pay attention to what you eat
2	Simplicity: Make one smart swap
3	Balance: Add color and nutrients
4	Satiety: Start with protein to feel full
5	Ownership: Reflect and adjust to stay consistent

Real-Life Example:

Let’s say your current day looks like:

Skip breakfast
Fast food at lunch
Soda in the afternoon
Heavy dinner and late-night snacks

Try these steps:

You track this for 3 days.
You swap soda for sparkling water.
You add some grapes at lunch.
You prep a few hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.
You check in Sunday and realize: You felt less bloated, more energized, and actually proud of yourself.

This is how it works. One step at a time. One decision at a time. No rules, just progress.

Final Thoughts

If no one has told you this lately: You’re allowed to start small. You don’t have to eat like an influencer or follow a perfect plan. You just have to start eating like someone who cares about feeling better. And this may surprise you, but eating more whole foods will make you feel better.

These five steps give you a foundation to eating healthier. They’re not flashy, but they work. They are a little boring, but guess what? Boring helps set habits in place, then you can make things less boring as you learn more and experiment with cooking later. What we’re after: a way of eating that doesn’t burn you out, but builds you up.

So go ahead. Start with one swap. Maybe that means putting spinach in your eggs or swapping your soda or just paying attention to your habits. You’ll be amazed at how those small changes stack up.

Want extra accountability?

DM me, shoot me an email, or comment on our latest post. Let me know which step you’re starting with. I’d love to cheer you on—and help you build a nutrition habit that finally feels doable.

Here’s to eating better—without the pressure.

-BK

Foundation Fitness Co.