Healthy eating can make you feel strong and energetic while improving your mental health. Healthy eating is not necessarily about eating less or cutting out things you enjoy, but rather being consistent and mindful of what you are putting into your body and choosing healthier whole foods to fill up your diet.
There is a lot of information out there about healthy eating and diets, but a lot of it tends to be harmful and can promote unhealthy or harmful eating habits.
Of course, eating healthy regularly is not an easy thing to do for everyone. It can be tempting to slip into old habits and forgo our decision to eat healthier things. While motivation is a huge factor in this, it is also the reasoning.
Finding the core reason behind why you are deciding to eat healthily can be extremely important. The reasoning behind it should be about you, and the fact that you want to do something that will improve your overall health.
When the motivation becomes about other people and doing things that fit the standard that others push onto you, finding the drive to eat healthily can become much harder, and it can lead to harmful eating habits. You can find more resources and information about motivation on the BetterHelp site.
In this article, we will share some helpful tips you can use to maintain your healthy eating habits even on days when you don’t feel the motivation.
Switch Up Your Recipes
If you are someone who enjoys variety in your food, make your healthy eating plan that way too. Use at least a couple of new recipes every week, or try to swap something you eat regularly so it tastes a bit different.
Keeping things fresh, both literally and metaphorically, can be a great motivator for healthy eating.
Even buying new cooking items, whether it’s cutlery or a new blender, can be a motivator to get cooking and try new things. It’s easier to stick to your regimen when you are not bored in the kitchen.
Meal Prep and Plan
Sometimes the urge to break healthy eating habits arises from not planning ahead. If you have not already thought about what you are going to eat for breakfast tomorrow, you may be inclined to reach for something unhealthy out of spontaneity.
Planning out the next two days, or even your week, in advance every weekend can make a huge difference in your mindset toward healthy eating. When you have your schedule written out, it can become harder to deviate from it.
You can also plan your shopping according to your meal plan for the week. Make a shopping list with just the things you need for that week’s meals and avoid straying from the list. This way, you are buying only what you need, and there will be fewer unhealthy items to turn to.
Subscribe to a Meal Service
Nowadays there are delivery services for practically anything. Meal services have also been in fashion for a while, where they bring fresh ingredients and printed recipes to your doorstep.
If you are someone with a busy lifestyle and very little time to make extensive plans every week, this may be an option for you. Some services can be pricey, but there are many affordable options out there too.
As these recipes and ingredients come pre-planned, it makes the process of eating healthy much more streamlined and provides less space to break your habits.
Eat more often
One of the biggest reasons we break our habits and reach for something unhealthy in our kitchen is hunger. If you have had a long day and have not eaten a lot, it can feel a lot more convenient to reach for something processed and unhealthy from your kitchen to satisfy your hunger quickly.
To try to avoid that ravenous feeling, it can actually help to eat more often, like every 2 to 3 hours. Eating something healthy every couple of hours, such as some fruit or some nuts, can satiate our cravings for unhealthy foods that arise from hunger.
Be kind to yourself
While you may have started to be more healthy with the things you choose to eat, there is always the worry of losing motivation. Starting anything that does not align with our current habits is challenging. This is why you need to find a balance between being strict with your regime, while also not being hard on yourself when you slightly deviate from the routine.
There may be days you feel more hungry than usual, or times you are not doing great mentally. When such occasions arise, do not be harsh on yourself and give yourself some leeway. Tell yourself that you will go back to your routine at the next meal, not the next day or the next week. Self-discipline and positive self-talk can always go hand in hand.