A complete guide to healthy eating

Your diet is extremely important, in this blog post I will outline how to eat a healthy diet.

What you need to eat:
Protein 

Protein is essential for everyone, to help with muscle growth and healthy bones. Protein is especially important for anyone doing resistance training or sports. I wouldn't recommend tracking protein or calories if you are a teen, but if you want to then you can find plenty of videos on how to do it online. However, I would try to have 1-2 sources of protein every day, or even one with every meal. Here are some of the best sources of protein:

Meat
Legumes
Eggs
Seeds
Nuts
Nut butters (Peanut butter is my favourite)
Tofu 
Fish
Beans

Now, there are plenty of others, these are just my favourites. 

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are also essential for growing teens, and everyone in general. Now there are people who don't like carbs, and you could make a case to eat low-carb or keto, but I think you don't need to worry about consuming carbs. Some people think carbohydrates make you fat, but they don't. Its just that they are easy to overeat and are quite high in calories, and there are good and bad carbs. 

Good carbs: These are what are called complex carbs and are essential for a balanced diet. You should definitely include these in your diet, and are probably already eating them. Here are some good examples of complex carbs:

• Apples
• Bananas
• Beans (kidney, garbanzo, black, white, pinto, etc.)
• Berries
• Broccoli
• Pasta
• Potatoes
• Quinoa
• Rice (white and brown)
• Seeds
• Starchy vegetables such as the following:
• Bread (white, whole grain, etc.)
• Whole-grain cereal

Bad carbs: These are what are called simple sugars. They are not necessary for a balanced diet and I would recommend eating in moderation. 1-2 servings per week is enough. They are often sugary and taste great, but are not healthy. Here are some examples: 

• Raw sugar
• Brown sugar
• Corn syrup/high-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Refined sugars in the following:
• Candy
• Soda and other sweetened beverages
• Syrup
• Pastries and other baked treats/sweets
• Cookies
• Breakfast cereals
• Fruit juice concentrate

Fats

Fats get a bad reputation, people think that eating fats will make you fat, now while it does sound logical, it's not true. There are healthy and unhealthy fats. Healthy fats are called unsaturated fats, while unhealthy fats are called saturated fats. We want to reduce saturated fats, and increase our intake of unsaturated fats. Here are some examples of each:

Saturated fats:

• beef
• lamb
• pork
• poultry, especially with skin
• beef fat (tallow)
• lard and cream
• butter
• cheese
• ice cream
• coconut
• palm oil
• palm kernel oil
• some baked and fried foods

And here are some examples of unsaturated fats:

• avocadoes
• canola oil
• cashews
• olive oil
• peanut butter
• peanuts
• sesame oil
• sesame seeds

So those are all the main three food groups, now lets move on to some healthy meals and snacks

Breakfast, In my opinion breakfast is the easiest meal to change as if you are a teen you will likely not be making your lunch or dinner most of the time, but you will with breakfast, again, you can combine these foods, for example having eggs and avocado on toast is a great combo.
Eggs
Avocado 
Peanut butter

Nuts

Porridge 

Lunch and dinner, trying to have 1-2 protein and 1-2 fibre will help keep you satiated, while also being healthy. Having a starch, protein and fruit/vegetable at these meals is good.

Snacks, some good options are:
Peanut butter banana bagel
Nuts

Seeds
Avocado toast
Dates 

Try to avoid processed foods and eat more whole foods - if you take nothing else away from this, just try to avoid processed foods and eat more whole foods.