Making a healthy eating schedule: our tips

Do you want to put together your own eating schedule, but don’t know where to start? A healthy eating schedule is always a good choice, no matter what your goal is. We give tips for drawing up a healthy eating schedule.

Why a healthy eating schedule?

There are different types of eating schedules: for weight loss and gain, or for a gluten- or lactose-free diet. Don’t you need one of these specific goals? Then use a healthy diet.

This allows you to keep track of what you’re taking in and to think about what you’re going to eat for a longer period of time. This way you do more targeted and conscious shopping, which saves costs. It is also easier to develop a healthy eating pattern because you are less likely to make (unhealthy) impulse purchases.

Building a healthy eating schedule

Stable blood sugar levels are important for staying energized throughout the day. Therefore, record three to five eating moments in your eating schedule. For most people it works well to schedule one or two snack moments in addition to the three main meals.

For example, start with a light breakfast and eat a healthy snack such as a piece of fruit mid-morning. Or have a heartier breakfast, a lighter lunch and then eat a healthy snack with tea in the afternoon.

Calculate healthy eating schedule

Have you determined the eating times? Now it’s time to think about how many calories each meal should have. Based on this, you calculate how you want to distribute the macronutrients over the meals.

The macronutrients are fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. If you do not want to lose or gain weight and do not exercise, you can keep these proportions: 40-55% carbohydrates, 20-35% fats, and 20-25% proteins.

Healthy ingredients

Healthy ingredients are part of a healthy diet. Think of vegetable products, unprocessed food and varied protein sources.

Vegetable products

Vegetable products are not only healthy, they are also better for the environment. That does not mean that you immediately have to eat 100% vegetarian or vegan: as long as you incorporate a lot of vegetables, legumes, fruit and nuts into your schedule.

Do you want to (sometimes) replace meat and fish with vegetable products? That’s fine. Make sure you get enough protein, iron, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B12 and calcium. Check out our blog about healthy plant-based eating.

Unprocessed food

For a healthy diet, also choose unprocessed foods. This is food that comes from nature and where (almost) nothing has been done. For example, fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables, eggs, nuts, seeds and kernels. If you eat unprocessed food, you can enjoy the maximum amount of natural fibers, minerals and vitamins.

Moreover, you can easily flavor this yourself with dried or fresh herbs, which are also healthy. This way your food tastes slightly different every day and you eat even more varied!

Varied protein sources

A final point of attention for your healthy eating schedule is varied protein sources. You really don’t have to eat chicken breast and eggs every day or take a scoop of protein powder. It is advised to get at least half of your protein from plant sources. For a healthy diet, it is advisable to replace meat and fish with other, plant-based protein sources.

A healthy eating schedule consists of varied recipes with, for example, tofu, tempeh, legumes, quinoa, chia seeds or beans. A pita bread with hummus or a simple wholemeal sandwich with peanut butter also provide a protein-rich meal.

A personalized healthy eating schedule

These tips have given you a useful insight into the most important parts of a healthy diet.

Do you find it difficult to make your own eating schedule compile and calculate? We totally get that! Check the green bar at the bottom of the page for a personal healthy eating schedule. Here you enter some information, such as your personal goal. You then have a personalized eating schedule made that 100% meets your needs. All you have to do is stick to it!