It’s been a while, but once again a visit to my home has inspired me to update this blog. During this trip, I visited my parents who have decided to have a healthier diet. So instead of just posting a recipe I’ve decided to just share a couple of tips that has really helped me in trying to eat just a little bit healthier than I did. (I also have my basic rules in my first post if you want more)
Advice for changing your eating style
1. Join a community or get to know someone who you can share recipes from. I have always wanted to eat a little healthier then I did, but it wasn’t until I married Jacob and got to know his mom that I really felt I knew how to sustain a healthier diet. When changing your diet; I think the biggest factor of whether or not you are going to continue to eat healthier is if you have your families support and someone to show you how to live healthier in an enjoyable manner.
2. Don’t make food punishment! This advice goes two ways. First and foremost, is if you are changing your diet make sure that you have SEVERAL meals that you like, are simple to make, and that taste good and are satisfying to you that fit your new diet. If you go into eating healthier and don’t know what to eat or worse eat meals you don’t actually think tastes good or satisfies you, you will fail. Second, don’t make your new diet punishment for you. Telling yourself over and over that you can’t eat this or that even though you want it because you are ‘fat’ or ‘unhealthy’ is mean to yourself and your self esteem. It is good and right to make guidelines, but if not eating sugar for example is making you feel like you are in prison, maybe you should ease-up on that rule and instead say, I will have X but I will only have so much, or I can have sweets but only if they don’t contain highly processed sugars like corn syrup.
3. Figure out what you have time and budget for. I would like to eat all organic for personal reasons, but I don’t because I would not be able to afford some of the meals and fruits I love if I were to go all organic. For me budget is more important than time it takes to cook and variety is more important than eating all organic. In other words adjust what you buy to what you need. If you work full time and have a busy schedule, perhaps speeding a little more for healthy quick foods is worth it. In short, know your budget and time limits and adjust figure out how you personally can easily eat healthier. Making your own sprouted wheat bread is wonderful, but if you don’t have the time for it, buy it. Eating all organic and local is great, but if you don’t have a way to make it work financially don’t sweat it. Do the best you can with what you have.
4. Take steps. Along with the above, realize eating habits take time. If you are happy and your body reacts well to a 180 turn around in your diet, fine, but for me and for the people I’ve seen permanently change their diet it has come through steps. Make little changes, and then continue to make small changes for the better over time. Not only will this make changing your diet easier, it will give you a long term path to follow and it will be easier on your body. For example, I ate lots of meat growing-up, so when I tried not to eat any meat for a month, I felt gross. My body wasn’t ready for a sudden drop in animal fats and protein. So I ate more chicken and fish and learned to reduce meat gradually. Also, a key note in this, is I listened to my body. I noticed I was getting dizzy and craving meat more and more, so I bought chicken and ate it.
5. Don’t trust advertising! News flash, packaging and advertisements are there to get you to buy there product, not to help you make the best decision for you and your family. Just because a box or a packages looks or says healthy does NOT mean it actually is. A good example of this is my bread rant. Just because a bread has double fiber, whole grain, and all natural doesn’t mean it doesn’t have fillers that are bad for you or make you hungrier then you actually are. If you are going to buy something look at the ingredient list, does it ONLY have basic kitchen ingredients? If it does then you can look at the amount of sugar and fat.
6. If you can, make it yourself! Honestly, making your meals 100% from scratch will probably help you eat healthier more than anything else. You will know exactly what you are eating and you can adjust recipes. When you making your favorite muffins you can use a ¼ cup less sugar or substitute honey or jam for sugar. You can use olive oil instead of bacon fat. Additionally, by not having pre-made food on hand, you’ll think twice about unneeded snacking, because you have to put forth time and effort to prepare the food.
7. I’ve said this before, Not all sugar and fats are the same. Look at where they come from: Is it olive oil or vegetable oil? Is it honey or corn syrup? Is it animal or vegetable fat (like avocado)? Is it fruit or cane sugar?
Well those are some things I have learned and are helping me. I hope they can help someone else too.
