Healthy eating should not be an all or nothing deal.
To wake up one day and tell yourself that ‘you are going to be healthy from now on’ never works, because the moment you eat something unhealthy you’ve failed. And that moment is just a matter of time.
WHY SET YOURSELF UP FOR FAILURE?
Making healthy food choices 100% of the time is just not realistic, nor should it be. Unfortunately the ‘Im going to be healthy’ declaration probably won’t cut it when you are at a party and the host is serving those ridiculous double fudge peanut butter brownies with cookie dough chunks and oreos on top from that awesome new bakery in town.
And why should you have to say no? It’s OK to live a little and indulge sometimes. What fun would life be without an occasional double fudge peanut butter brownie with cookie dough chunks and oreos on top?
But there IS a way to have your brownie and be healthy too.
Aim to be healthIER.
If we aim to be healthIER instead of healthY we can’t lose.
Everybody can improve their eating regimen in some way.
For example:
-Maybe you know that you should be incorporating more water into your diet, so now you will drink a glass first thing in the morning before your morning coffee.
-Maybe it’s limiting your sweet intake, so now instead of having some type of sugary treat willy nilly throughout the day, you will only have it after dinner.
-Maybe it is incorporating more fruit into your diet, so instead of having a granola bar for your mid day snack you will have an apple.
-Maybe it is your breakfast routine, so instead of finishing your kids’ leftovers, you will sit down with them and prepare your own healthy breakfast.
WHATEVER it is, make the decision to be BETTER, not PERFECT.
So even if you eat that apple instead of the granola bar only ONE day in a certain week, you have still succeeded!
SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS AND YOU ALWAYS WIN.
Once you make one change and start doing it more and more, it will become much more seamless and eventually will become a habit.
Then it will be time to pick another area to improve. And then another. One at a time. No rush. This isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. And remember, ANY improvement is better than NO improvement.
My weakness is sweets.
My sweet tooth can get the best of me if I am not careful, so I made a pact with myself that I would limit sweets to once per day, after dinner.
Now I just know and accept that it isn’t an option to have sweets before then, and Im OK with it because I know that I will get my sweet fix at the end of the day.
BUT….if there is a day I just can’t resist the temptation, I WILL have the sweet, knowing that as a whole I have still improved my diet.
The point is that I didn’t wake up one day and decide that ‘Im never having sweets again.’ That would have lasted, at most, one and a half days, and I would have been right back where I started from. I got real and set myself up for success by aiming to have less sweets instead of eliminating them completely.
Now it’s your turn. Pick an area in your diet to improve and celebrate a healthyier you!