Sticking to Better Eating Habits
It’s easy to make a monster out of our goals and new years resolutions. Here are 6 tips to keep you on target with your goals this year. I’ve used food here as a practical guide, but these extend to successfully making any shift in your life a default way of being.
(Also, for the most part I refrain from using the word “diet” and say things like “eating habits” intentionally as “diets” tend to have a temporary life association but these 6 tips are focused on successfully creating beneficial and rejuvenating eating or life habits.)
Become aware of what the food you eat does to your body and overall energy: This is simple enough to execute but very very powerful. For an entire day stalk yourself and make a list of everything you eat and drink. Don’t leave a thing out. Then, give yourself a 45 minute date with Google and start doing searches on what each meal is composed off and its effect on your body. For example, if you had a some pizza and diet coke for lunch, sit down and break apart the pizza into cheese, tomato sauce, salami, onions and crust.
Don’t plan on doing anything one way or another. Just be informed of what you are choosing to do to your body when you eat pizza. When you bring genuine awareness to anything and are willing, natural shifts of improvement if needed will become apparent.
Learn to cook your favorite dishes & nurture yourself: If you’ve got a thing for pizza don’t just cut it out of your eating habits completely. Pizza doesn’t have to be as processed as Domino’s. Get in the kitchen and put some TLC into your food and body by learning healthier alternatives to making your favorite foods.
Pay attention to who you are with and how you feel when you eat in a way that is non-supportive to you: (Notice a trend yet? Awareness :)). We tend to be creatures of habit. So if you have noticed an act or a frequent result that doesn’t support you, keep an eye on it and you will start to notice patters in action/reaction or what triggers you. Then from this awareness your gut will naturally guide you to a more productive pattern if you are silent enough to hear it and open/willing to make that shift in your life.eating habits
Have a willingness and openness to playing around with your eating habits (or whatever you are focusing on improving): Changing any habit can be challenging, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a fun personal growth experience. Don’t go into altering you’re eating by making putting down strict rules across the board. That is a recipe for stress and possibly unsuccessful plans. Instead have guidelines to play by every day and understand you are in a learning phase with how your body and overall energy reacts to the shifts in eating habits. That doesn’t mean not to set goals, it means don’t be attached to them and don’t carve them in stone. Be aware that through learning more about yourself and your body, more supportive habits and plans will naturally sprout from within you.
Don’t copy your friends diet plans: Look, what are the chances that you could fit into your best friends jeans? Exactly! So don’t try to fit into their “diet” plans either. For sure ask around, observe and experiment with yourself and come up with plans that are unique to you. We all may be made of the same stuff, but the way my stuff interacts is unique to me. Same goes for you, so respect and cater to your uniqueness.
“Baby steps in to the elevator”: I never had a chance to read Baby Steps by Dr. Leo Marvin, but I’m sure it was on point J. Yes you have this forever life altering goal, but you are not tackling every decision on what you will eat till the end of time at this moment. So don’t think of it that way. What makes diets or any goal for that matter a beast seemingly impossible to tame or unsuccessful is the focus we put on the end point instead of being aware of where we are headed but focusing on whatever decisions or elements we can have an affect on RIGHT NOW. See your goals in entirety, but live and feel them in baby steps.
Baby Steps- What about Bob
It is crazy helpful to spend some time understanding your motivational style. A study on dieting published by the Journal of Consumer Research states that exerting self control makes people more likely to behave aggressively towards others. This is why eating or any other goal where you altering your habits calls for you to be aware of how you are reacting spiritually, emotionally and physically. This alertness matched with your style of motivation, patience, determination and openness to adjust to your guts directions is what eases the aggression that can be caused by deprivation. This ease is what allows you to make the desired shifts. So! Go on with your bad self and here is to a happy 2016 🙂
