When you embark on a transformation journey where your eating habits are completely altered, it can be hard to remain committed to your new lifestyle. Frustration often creeps in, and you find yourself bouncing back to your original routine. While this is normal, it can also lead to burnout which won’t contribute to your health at all. Instead of jumping on to the fad diet bandwagon, the goal should be to develop healthy eating habits. These will make you feel good and are sustainable to incorporate in your daily routine for a long time.
Here are 6 ways you can make this process easier and stay on track to healthier eating.
Positive Reinforcement
While people try to change up their eating habits, they often focus on what they need to give up instead of incorporate. Focusing on the negative can be discouraging and make you feel bad about yourself. This hit to your self-esteem makes it easy to fall back into the loop of consuming junk food. Instead, try to think of all the beautiful, robust, nutrient filled foods that you are about to consume. Focus on how good your new eating habits will make you feel and celebrate yourself for taking the initiative to transform your health. You shouldn’t deny yourself any food groups, be it fats or carbohydrates. Instead, the goal should be to let your diet comprise of mostly, healthy, vibrant food with an occasional, indulgent day. Once you make this the outlook to your changing diet, you’ll find yourself reaching for sugary or processed foods less and less anyway. Know what your food consists of by clicking on the video below.
Start Small
Instead of completely overhauling your eating habits in one go, start by making small, manageable changes. Once a new habit has become part of your daily routine without having to pay attention to it, take on more new practices. Taking on too big a goal from the get-go is a recipe for frustration. A small, realistic example of executing this can be to introduce vegetables in every meal or drink an ounce of water per pound of your body weight each day. Another method to do it would be to hit RESET on your food habits. Start with a short reset that focuses on vegetables, healthy proteins, and whole grains for one to three days. Do this without any external pressure or judgement and pay heed to how it makes you feel.
Find Foods That You Enjoy
If you don’t like spinach, don’t force it down your throat. There are so many wonderful, delicious, equally nutritious fruits and vegetables that can make you feel your best. A sustainable health plan should be one that excites you to take it on. Finding healthy foods that you love and bring you joy is the ultimate goal. Try lots of new foods and stick with the ones that make you truly happy and satisfied.
Define Your Why
Your food goal should go beyond weight loss or “looking good.” As with all goals, sticking to your routine and achieving your target is more realistic when you have a reason that is truly meaningful to you. Here are a few examples of that inspire you to make lasting changes: becoming healthy to spend more quality time with family, eating clean to have a clear head for success in your professional life and building energy and strength to take on athletic endeavours.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindful eating helps you develop a deeper, more constructive connection with food to form healthier long-term habits. The more you think about and appreciate how food relates to the body, the more you will reach for more invigorating options. Practice mindfulness, sit down for your meals without your phone, work, or any screens. As you eat, take time to notice each flavour and texture and appreciate the eating experience. Lastly, you can give gratitude for how the meal provides energy for your body, allowing you to do all the things you love.
Don’t Give Up
Slipping up and giving up on a diet that has been prescribed to you, can impart a sense of failure in you. Try and move on quickly without placing too much time and focus on your slip. What happened won’t really do any good to you if you bet yourself up about your cheat meal. Instead, focus on the present – what changes can you make to your next meal? Simply get back up and on track with your healthy eating habits.
What’s crucial to remember is that healthy eating habits begin with a healthy mindset. Before changing the way you eat, try changing the way you think about and relate to food. Eating is a life-giving experience, and it can be much easier to adopt healthy eating habits if you think about your food with joy and appreciation.
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