Your body is entirely composed of what you have consumed, so you truly are what you eat.
A healthy diet needs to be a priority in your everyday life, as a better diet will help you:
- Maintain hydration
- Facilitate efficient and effective digestion
- Sustain bone density
- Feed (and grow) stressed muscles
- Limit unwanted body fat
- Reduce bodily inflammation
- Stabilize blood sugar
- Fortify the immune system
Achieving a healthier diet is all about making better decisions and behaving differently. Impulsive decisions often lead to poor choices. You need to make it easier to make the right choices—and little changes can have a huge impact on your ability to eat healthier.
Below we’ve outlined modifications you can make to improve your eating decisions and lead a healthier dietary lifestyle.
Create a More Supportive Environment
A healthier diet starts with the food choices you make. Reduce unhealthy temptations by creating a more supportive environment:
- Shop at the grocery store with an eye to the outer ring of the store and stay out of the aisles where processed foods are.
- Only conduct a weekly shop after a meal (and a full stomach). Never grocery shop when hungry!
- Stock your house with healthier choices and eliminate the poorer choices. It’s easier to avoid bad decisions if the poor choices are more challenging to find and access.
- Put out high-value, tasty snacks, including apples, carrots, hummus (made with extra virgin olive oil), nuts, and seeds. Increasing accessibility increases the likelihood you’ll choose healthy.
- Avert your gaze at the store check-out counter. Getting gas? Pay at the pump.
- Never use a vending machine! There are no healthy choices found in these locations.
Modify Your Essential Personal Behaviors
Slight adjustments to your everyday personal behaviors will have a big impact on your diet:
- Drink water regularly throughout the day. Wake up and drink a glass of water. Have a glass at the ready all day long, and drink some before meals.
- Eat only low-glycemic foods, especially during the day’s first meal.
- Identify and cut way back on sneaky calories. Key example: Skip the condiments!
- Try “easy fasting” by leveraging your highest priority activity—sleep! Consciously work to increase the length of time from the last thing eaten before bed until the first thing eaten the next day. Push for twelve hours and beyond.
Eat More Deliberately
Changes in how you eat can also improve your food choices and overall health:
- Only eat while sitting at the table—no grab-and-go.
- Serve food on smaller plates and bowls. Eat it with smaller utensils. (And yes, this really works!)
- Eat only from a plate or bowl. Not directly from a bag, a jar, or a box.
- Chew your food thoroughly. One rule of thumb is to chew each bite 32 times (again, this is not easily done and perhaps a bit excessive, but you get the point).
- Eat slowly. Learn to savor each bite. Take small bites. Slow down and enjoy.
With just a few steps, you can begin a journey toward a healthier, more rewarding relationship with food. Get started today by putting into action one (or more!) of the above adjustments.
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Header Image Credit: stylephotographs