Better Eating Habits in the New Year
Written by: Foodom, posted on 01/17/2021
If you are like millions of Americans, the new year likely prompted you to eat healthier and exercise more. But how do you make these things a “habit” vs. a two-week trial before heading back to fast food and sitting on the couch?
Contrary to the popular “21-day” myth, it actually takes more like two months to form a habit that sticks. It is often easier to start with something small and build on that habit instead of changing to a super strict diet, or suddenly working out every day for two hours.
When it comes to healthier eating, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, suggests:
Redesigning your environment to make cues for your preferred habits more obvious. This could be as simple as cleaning your kitchen before bed and laying out a cutting board and knife to chop vegetables in the morning, or filling up water bottles and placing them around the house so you drink more water.
More tips from James Clear about habits that last
Reprogram your brain to enjoy the harder habits. Instead of saying, “Oh another boring vegetable,” think “another opportunity for my body to get the fiber, vitamins, and minerals I need to get myself healthier.”
Reduce exposure to a bad habit. If you are used to sitting on the couch after dinner, turning on the TV, and immediately getting a bowl of ice cream, try a new after-dinner habit. Get on your tennis shoes before dinner, and take a walk instead. Not only will you break that ingrained habit, you’ll get some new exercise as well.
The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Healthier Eaters
Tanner Base, from STRONGER U, describes 7 habits of highly successful dieters. Learn about all the 7 habits here.
The Real Goal Is The Process – It’s useful to set new goals in several different areas in life and keep changing them, based on progress, ensuring you’re on the right path. But what doesn’t change is the process you use to reach that goal. You still eat healthy food, move, workout. Those are the things that are dependable and will be around long after the goals are renewed.
Forgiveness – One of Tanner’s favorite things to tell clients if they slip-up is: “Congratulations! You’re a human! Now let’s start today fresh, find the smallest positive action we can do, and make that our top priority for the day.” Mistakes will happen on diets, in the gym, at work, and in the family life. The critical thing is to understand what went on, why, and learn what you can do in the future to handle that same kind of situation better. And then forgive yourself, accept that it happened, and move on.
It’s all about trade-offs – Our food log is a running history of our priorities and decisions we’ve made. Are you really acting in a way that will take you toward your goals? Maybe your priorities are more socially inclined, or perhaps they’re more inclined to eating take-out than you think. Many of us are afraid to look at those priorities because we don’t want to change them. Change is hard and uncomfortable. But once you make the change, your behaviors are more in line with your priorities, and in no time you’re making strides towards those goals. All because you recognized you were already making trade-offs, now you just switched those trade-offs.
How Foodom Can Help Your Healthier Eating Lifestyle
If the thought of preparing healthy food for your family sounds like a huge chore, you can take James Clear’s advice and reprogram your brain to enjoy hard habits, OR you can let Foodom do the work for you!
We have dishes that accommodate many types of diets, whether you are going for low-fat, gluten-free, keto, low-carb, vegetarian, vegan, we’ve got something for you! The best part is that it just takes scrolling through the dishes you’d like for that week, choosing them, and scheduling a chef to come to your house, and cook it all FOR YOU! The chef will even grocery shop for you (for an extra fee) if you want to save even more time in your week.
Changing your eating habits can be hard. Let Foodom make it easy for you to maintain!
View our dishes here, and use the Filters on the left then choose specific Diets.
