HEALTH FOOD. It’s practically a four letter word around these parts, but you know what? We’re not all so lucky that we can afford to buy organic chicken, buy fresh produce every day, or have time for lavish Sunday brunch brunches. They might be ideal for good health like eso damage health poison ix and weight management, but reality is often much more complicated — and it doesn’t stop there: the list goes on and on.
10 ways to reinvent health food are:
1. Do less, but better.
If you love your morning jog or afternoon walk, but it’s not enough to see real changes in your body or the way you feel, then perhaps that healthy activity needs to go for a month. Set small goals for yourself and see where you end up: can you change a habit of non-health foods into partaking in moderation? What about going out for dinner instead of ordering from home? The point is not to set up some kind of crisis and then fail spectacularly, but rather to take one step at a time into healthier habits that are sustainable.
2. Develop small rewards.
This is one that’s more fun than practical, but can be really effective. When you take the time to eat well, how do you reward yourself? Do you reward yourself with an unhealthy treat right after? Rewarding yourself with something small (and non-food related) is something that many people overlook, but it can help develop good habits — and reduce cravings in the process.
3. Use less processed food in your routine meals.
Processed foods aren’t all bad — they’re quick meals for a single person or an army, and great for things like pizza or frozen dinners when we don’t have time to cook from scratch. But creating a healthier diet can often focus on minimizing our processed meal time, and favoring the homemade versions. And it’s a lot easier to make food you know you like, in familiar surroundings.
4. Keep healthy habits up when you go on holiday — no matter where you are.
When we go away, we can often fall into bad eating habits more easily than at home. But in many ways, going away is a great opportunity to retrain our habits and motivate ourselves to do more healthy eating while traveling. It can slow down your metabolism and help your body to adjust to a whole new food environment, something that can take time.
5. Make a plan.
Healthy eating is all about making small, manageable changes in our lives — and this is where a well-thought out plan comes in handy for changing habits. If you’re serious about it, set yourself up for success: if you can spend five minutes on Thursday night planning your healthy meals for the week ahead, so much the better!
6. Be prepared with healthy options when dining out, especially at cafes and restaurants.
If you’ve done your research and know that healthy food isn’t on the menu, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to bring your own. Keep a stash of healthy snacks in your bag for emergencies, instead of using those carb-heavy lattes and doughnuts as an excuse to eat poorly in “healthier” situations.
7. Be flexible with your goals.
When we set goals, there’s always a chance that we won’t make it to where we want to be — particularly if we have a long term goal like eating healthier every day. If you go back to our first tip, and have small goals that are easily achievable, then it shouldn’t be too hard when you find yourself slipping up now and again. It’s all about finding the balance in life: you can have small changes, but still maintain your usual habits, or you can make too many changes that end up throwing a major wrench in your life.
8. Be more forgiving of yourself.
It’s easy to beat ourselves up when we miss our sugar fix, or just don’t seem to be able to stick to our diet — especially if we’re the type who doesn’t get it on weekends anyway. But it’s important that you realize that these slip-ups aren’t the end of the world; people make mistakes — we’re human and sometimes things do go wrong.
9. Be prepared for not getting it right all the time.
Is there a secret for being perfect at being healthy? I mean, what if we did everything right, and still found ourselves craving an unhealthy treat? How long would you allow yourself to indulge before going back to healthier options? As mentioned above, part of the process is allowing yourself to do the things you enjoy moderately or in moderation — if you’re on a diet that doesn’t include regular pizza or take-out food, don’t beat yourself up when you eventually eat something that isn’t part of your plan.
10. Know what works for you.
Everyone’s different — that means everyone’s fitness and nutrition goals are usually at least slightly different too. So don’t be afraid to try different things out, and come up with your own tweaked version of a healthier diet that works for you.
Conclusion:
It’s often easier said than done, but trying to reinvent healthy food is all about making small changes over as long a period of time as possible — and slowly increasing your tolerance to them. Sometimes we make immediate lifestyle changes, but it’s more common for us to make slow ones — just like the frog in the boiling pot who jumped out at the last minute. But that’s why you should think about changing habit patterns from day one: every single small change made can add up over time, ending with a sustainable lifestyle change.
