Ever since you were very little you were always taught to clean your plate, not to be wasteful. Your parents would pile on the food and you were forced to sit at the table until somehow you managed to shove everything down, saving your least favorite for last. Of course your parents had good intentions in mind, wanting you to grow big and strong. But were they really just teaching you bad eating habits? As an adult you have always felt guilty about leaving anything left on your plate. So you willingly scarf every last bit down, knowing that you have had enough and are about to burst, you wouldn’t want to be wasteful!

Stop the cycle of guilt and over eating. Change the way you look at your plate. Think about how much you realistically should eat before you pile it on, not how much you want to eat.

Here are a few easy Healthy Eating Tips that just make sense:

1. You don’t have to clean your plate, eat half and take the rest to go!

Especially when dining out. Restaurants almost always serve huge portions of food, more than anyone needs to eat at one time. Take half of it home, not only will you save your stomach you’ll also save some time and money the next day at lunch.

2. Focus on just eating 1 food on your plate at a time.

Research has shown that if you eat one thing at a time on your plate before moving on to the next food you will eat less. Your taste buds tend to get tired of a single flavor pretty quickly and you’ll be more likely to think you’ve had enough. In a study in the journal Appetite, the researches found that the subjects ate 18% more fries and 16% more brownies when they switched between foods instead of eating just one food at a time.

3. Eat your vegetable first!

It may seem silly but eat the healthiest thing on your plate first. Fill up on sweet potatoes and green beans not your fried chicken.

Check out this article for some great sweet potato healthy recipes.