Learn To Eat Well By Changing Habits

Learn to eat well without thinking about a strict diet, where after eliminating the extra pounds you had, you stop eating in a balanced and healthy way. This is where you should assess your eating habits.

Learn to eat correctly without relying on a restrictive eating plan that tells you what and how to plan your meals. It really depends on your desire to lead a healthy life. It is a matter of everyday life, which cannot become a punishment.

In other words, eating right is a lifestyle in which, naturally, there will be room to satisfy your tastes, even though they are unhealthy. Next, we’ll tell you how you can change some habits to start this new step.

Learn to eat correctly by following these steps

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed a guide to improving eating habits. Three approaches were established to successfully effect change: reflect, replace, and reinforce.

• Reflect on your eating habits, whether they are good or bad. It’s about understanding how you got into those habits that led to unhealthy eating.
• Replace these bad habits and learn to eat by applying practices that motivate you to eat healthily.
• Reinforce what you’ve learned so you don’t repeat past mistakes.

It’s a slow but safe process. In the reflection stage, there are some steps you should take to be aware of how you acted, and what made you want to generate an evolution in your eating habits.

1. Make a list of all your eating habits

First of all, the idea is to take a notebook and start a food diary where you put what you eat, what time, how you combine your food, what is the dessert, etc… This will help you detect which are the missteps that has given.

2. Highlight the habits you consider bad

Without a doubt, they are the ones that cause you to not eat properly or much more than what you need. For example: not chewing, eating fast, skipping meals, eating standing up, or seeing a technological device, eating when you are not hungry, among others.

3. Pay attention to unhealthy habits

In this sense, the objective is to detect what are the factors that lead you to incur in these bad practices. In this process you will also find the good steps you have taken, for example: drinking skim milk, or eating fruit for dessert.

4. Make a list of triggers

This way you can know when and where you eat inappropriately. For example: not doing physical activity, always buying your favorite snacks, not planning your daily meals, thinking that food will lift your spirits, to name a few.

5. Underline or circle the most frequent factors

Especially if you  visit your parents, go out with friends, or don’t know what to eat during main meals. The important thing is that you identify them, in order to regulate them properly.

6. Answer the following questions

• What can I do to avoid this situation? At this point you will know how to initiate change. It will identify what to do to avoid making the same mistakes.

• Can you do something different that allows you to choose healthier options? You cannot always choose different paths.

Of course, the important thing is to be aware of these processes, and to take as many predictions as possible. For example, you can certainly participate in these activities with your snacks or meals, or sit away from desserts. This is all part of changing habits.

Replacing is a matter of conscience

If you have reached the substitution stage, it is because you have already gone through an arduous path of reflection, where you have detected that bad things have led you to eat in an unhealthy way.

In any case, now you must start acquiring new practices.

• learn to eat slower
• Eat when you are really hungry.
• Identify which foods you can add to your menus.
• Plan your weekly menus.
• Take snacks into account.

Reinforce not to weaken

When you identify with your new habits, eating right becomes spontaneous and enjoyable. Remember that customs are reinforced with daily practice.

At first, this will be costly because you have changed the habits you learned in your childhood.

In conclusion, ask yourself again what caused you to make the mistake again, and what you must do to make things right again. There is no doubt: this is a challenge that will change your life forever.