Eating Right is a Habit
We all know that eating right is sometimes impossible. Our busy lifestyles don’t lend themselves to cooking our own healthy meals. Easy becomes our go-to choice, whether it is a conscious or unconscious decision. That drive-thru is so much easier at times.
And everyone indulges now and then with foods that would not be considered healthy. Doing this is not considered a problem. However, when people make poor food choices as part of their regular diet, that is problems emerge.
The foods you eat are based on your habits. It takes time to develop these habits and requires you to stick with them to make them work. It’s also about making a conscious choice of the ingredients that go into your foods. Do you check nutrition labels at the supermarket?
But, just checking the labels is not enough. You need to understand the impact of the foods and how they affect a balanced diet. You can have too much of a good thing when eating. For instance, eating fruit is good. Eating too much fruit could increase your sugar levels. Even though fruit sugars are natural, they contain sugar just the same.
But where do you start to develop good eating habits? Trying to be too restrictive in the foods you eat is often a pattern for failure. Start with trying to create balance by eating more healthy foods than fast food. For instance, it’s okay to eat salt, and your body requires a small amount of it. But you shouldn’t load up on foods that are high in sodium. The better approach is to prepare your meals with basic ingredients. You can control the ingredients when you do this. This means you can choose how much salt or sugar, or whatever ingredients to add.
As part of your routine, you should also factor in portion control. This is one of the essential attributes that can make or break a diet. If you manage proper portion control, you will be able to eat more of the foods you enjoy, even if a few of them are not considered great choices.
Developing good eating habits is especially difficult if you’ve succumbed to a lifestyle of fast and easy instead of thoughtful choices. It does take a great deal of effort to make healthy changes when demands of your job and activities of your children are pulling you in so many directions.
The biggest problem with eating right is the benefits are not seen until sometime into the future. We live in a society where instant gratification is the norm. This makes it much harder to stick to healthy eating plans, because losing weight, and even more importantly, feeling great, won’t start happening until months later. This is why the early part of forming good eating habits is so crucial to the process. Try to focus on the benefits you will see later.
Think about it. How might the effort of developing good eating habits impact your life, and more importantly, the lives of your children?
This article was originally published on my site at https://herlifehacks.com .
I’m Vicki Peel, a retired educator, proud grandmother and blogger. As a former high school home economics teacher, I started H.E.R. Life Hacks to share my expertise in areas of home style, lifestyle, and food. H.E.R. stands for Home Economics Reimagined. Inner peace and self-care have never been more important than now. Download my free report, Self-Care Hacks at https://herlifehacks.com
