The importance of good healthy eating habits cannot be stressed enough. It’s through eating quality foods that you get to enjoy numerous health benefits including mental sharpness, a strong and healthy heart, overall wellness and increased energy levels. However, to successfully develop good healthy eating habits, you need to gradually change your existing eating habits and not impose strict dietary limitations that deprive you of the foods you love. In this post we’ll be providing you with a detailed action plan that explains how you can do just that in four simple steps.
Assess Your Current Diet
In order to start eating healthier, you don’t have to instantly drop all of your current eating habits. Instead, use your current diet as the platform for making future healthy changes. Simply conduct a diet assessment to identify which healthy eating habits you should maintain and which poor eating habits need to be dropped. Write the healthy eating habits you should maintain on one list and then write the poor eating habits you need to ditch on a separate list.
Eliminate Temptation
Are you in the habit of eating low-nutritional foods at home even when you’re not hungry? If so, you’re not alone. I’m talking about foods that are often pre-packaged, high in fat/sugar/sodium, containing unrecognizable ingredients, and low to no nutritional value. Many people engage in this unhealthy eating habit simply because they’re within close reach of such foods. Therefore, if you want to develop and stick to healthy eating habits, a good starting place would be clearing your pantry and refrigerator of any potentially tempting foods. Without these food items around, you’ll be able to make healthier choices because there won’t be any of these foods to tempt you.
Make One Small Change to Your Diet Each Week
Trying to acquire healthy eating habits overnight is unrealistic. If you do so, you’ll be setting yourself up for failure because sooner or later, you’ll regress back to your old eating habits. (THIS IS WHY DIETS DON’T WORK!!!!) So, instead of trying to completely overhaul your diet, take it slowly by making one small and simple dietary change per week. Some examples of the weekly changes you could make include swapping diet soda for water, swapping chips for nuts, or swapping your weekly pizza for a healthy, home-cooked meal. Doing this will make the process of developing healthy eating habits more manageable and less stressful.
Stay Positive
To successfully adopt new healthy eating habits, you’ll need to be highly determined and committed to the process. This does not mean that you have to follow strict guidelines with no room for indulgences. What it does mean, is that you will choose dedication to prioritizing healthy foods. One of the best ways to fuel your commitment and determination is by staying positive. Stop thinking about what you have given up and instead focus on the positive aspects of healthy eating and the successes you’ve managed so far. This will give you the will to keep moving forward whenever you’re tempted to fall back to your former bad eating habits.
Summary
By incorporating these simple but effective tips into your lifestyle, you’ll find it so easy to transition into the process of healthy eating. So review all four tips right now, start taking action today and begin your healthy eating journey.
