Unless you've been living on another planet or haven't really been paying attention to your nutrition at all during your life then you'll have heard about the 5-A-Day plan which is basically the US Government's recommendation that the average person should consume roughly 5 servings or fruits and vegetables each day.

Now I know you're sitting there going "Five servings? Am I meant to spend my entire day eating?" That's not how it works though and when you take a step back and look at how you might go about achieving the 5-A-Day recommendation you'll be surprised at how easy it can be for you.

But why should you eat more fruit and vegetables than meat each day for example? To understand this we need to look back into the history of humans. We were hunter-gatherers once upon a time and lived an almost nomadic lifestyle. Because of this we tended to live off whatever the land could provide us with to top up what food we were able to hunt.

So our diet would have consisted of a small amount of meat and a lot of fruit, nuts, berries and root vegetables. Our modern diet has turned that on its head with our diet being made up of a lot of meat and almost no fresh vegetables to speak of – everything is processed, packaged or tinned.

So overall the food you now eat is far more convenient for you because you don't need to go hunting for it or gathering it up but convenient food is rarely healthy and that's why the Five-A-Day principle makes so much sense.

You can get your day off to a great and energetic start and in full compliance with the Five-A-Day plan by having a large glass of fresh fruit juice or a large fruit smoothie each morning. The Five-A-Day plan means you need to eat roughly 2 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables each day so a fruit smoothie will allow you to meet most of your fruit requirement for the day and it will keep you full until lunchtime too.

When it comes to eating enough vegetables you can bring some carrot or celery sticks or other crudité to work with you as a snack instead of hitting the vending machine for some chips or a candy bar at the first sign of hunger. Sure that candy bar tastes good but it also means you've just earned yourself another 30 minutes on the treadmill to work it all off again. This means you're hitting your vegetable intake target and you're also eating a snack that has zero calories in it too so it's a real win-win for you here.

And then when it comes to dinner time you just need to make sure that you're mixing up your vegetables and not just relying on potatoes to fill the gap. Not every vegetable will taste great to you initially but the more you eat them and the more health benefits you get them from them the more you realize you should have been eating more vegetables with your dinner years ago.

If you tend to eat out a lot either through habit or just as a necessity of life then there's no reason why you can't follow your healthy eating plan there too. You can start your meal with a vegetable soup, followed by some baked chicken or steak with a baked potato and some carrots, mushrooms and broccoli with just a drizzle of garlic butter and then finish your meal with a fruit salad. Doesn't that sound delicious?

Once you set your mind to eating healthily and following the Five-A-Day plan you'll find it's a whole lot easier than you might ever have imagined. 

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