<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Q: There are so many food rules and nutrition trends out there. Is there a way to eat healthy without obsessing over everything I put in my mouth? And how can I get myself to stick with it? Whenever I try to eat all the &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; things, I ultimately just give up. \u2014 Anne Ling, 45, Santa Monica, CA A:  Don&amp;#039;t get distracted by the so-called rules. The only &amp;quot;rule&amp;quot; you need to follow is to have a mostly healthy diet and go easy on the not-so-healthy eats, such as processed foods and animal fats. I&amp;#039;ll get into that more in a moment, but in the meantime, please know that you&amp;#039;re not alone in wanting to give up. I feel that women in this country tend to cluster at one of two extremes: They try and then bail on eating healthy (and often gain weight), or they become hypervigilant about fat grams. Neither is good. You&amp;#039;d have to have lived under a rock for the past few decades to not know that the consequences of obesity and/or eating high-fat, highly processed foods include increased rates of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. On the flip side, being too strict about your diet can take the joy out of eating. And bouncing back and forth from excess eating to drastic weight loss can be hard on your heart.  Treat yourself \u2014 a little So, how do you get yourself to eat healthy and stick with it? Stop aiming for perfection. Years ago, I heard a nutritionist recommend an 80/20 eating plan \u2014 specifically, if 80 percent of what you eat is good for you (as in, lean meats and fish, fruits and veggies, whole grains, and low- or no-fat dairy foods), the other 20 percent can be whatever you want. The idea is to allow a small part of each meal to be a food you crave \u2014 and to be honest with yourself about what you eat. (So don&amp;#039;t devour half an ice cream cake and justify it as your 20 percent for the day.)  By consuming healthy fare most of the time and allowing yourself regular treats, you can counter the &amp;quot;what-the-hell effect&amp;quot; (seriously, that&amp;#039;s an actual term). You know the drill: You have your usual fruit and yogurt for breakfast and a salad for lunch, and when you get back to your desk, you see that a coworker has surprised you with two of her homemade mini cupcakes. You resist, resist, resist, then nibble off a tiny piece of one, then succumb and eat the rest of it. Followed by the other. And then you think, What the hell \u2014 as long as I&amp;#039;ve been bad once, I might as well enjoy myself for the rest of the day. So you eat fried chicken for dinner. With french fries. And some ice cream before bed.  But if you take the 80/20 approach, you say, &amp;quot;That mini cupcake is my 20 percent for lunch, and maybe I&amp;#039;ll have the other after dinner&amp;quot; \u2014 and you stick with your healthful eating pattern. Letting yourself indulge, in moderation, is key. It&amp;#039;s far better to have a couple of cookies every day than to deprive yourself for four days, then cave and eat the whole box on the fifth. Forget the trends  You should also avoid extremes when it comes to nutrition trends. For example, haven&amp;#039;t we all heard that blueberries are an amazing source of antioxidants? Well, carrots, purple grapes, spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, and other produce are fine sources too. Blueberries are not some magic elixir. You want to eat a variety of brightly colored fruits and vegetables. And if you don&amp;#039;t like a certain one, don&amp;#039;t eat it. The point is that there are lots of good-for-you foods. And the more of them you choose every day, the more freedom you have to dive into that cupcake. Suddenly, eating healthy doesn&amp;#039;t seem so hard, huh?  Alice Domar, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health, an expert for BeWell.com, and the author of six books, including her newest, coauthored with Susan Love, M.D., Live a Little. Send your questions to her at askali@redbookmag.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/healthy-eating/advice/a6188/healthy-dieting/>