A Diet You Can Manage

First off, a diet is completely an inaccurate term- I was just trying to get your attention. It is not a diet, it is a lifestyle. Let's talk about ways we can make eating healthy part of your everyday life.

To start a lifestyle of healthy eating, it takes many small steps. Take the following scenarios for example:

• When someone decides to run a marathon for the first time, how do they approach it? Do they wake up one day and run a marathon? No.
• When someone wants to start a company, does it happen over night? No. 

So then why do we expect to have a perfect "diet" instantly?
Why do we think we can wake up on Monday and go on a diet to lose weight. Really?! And we think we are going to be successful with that?

Tell me, a persons who wants to run a marathon but doesn't train at all...do they make it to the finish line? No. They might if they hitched a ride or took a short cut, but that is cheating! They did not run across the finish line because they work hard to get to that goal, they did it by cheating.  You want to train for a marathon and pass through the finish line because you trained and worked hard to make it to your goal!  Winning is only fun if you put hard work into it, not if you stole it by cheating.

The same basic principle of working hard to achieve your goal applies to eating healthy! You need to take several small steps to get to your ultimate goal if you want to be successful.

Truly your GOAL should be TO EAT HEALTHY & BE SUCCESSFUL DOING IT.   Not just to diet or lose weight.

Ideas for getting started TODAY:

-Write a food journal for three days.

• Write down EVERYTHING you eat AND drink. Make sure to estimate serving sizes as accurately as possible.
• Be honest. If you ate 4 fun size Snickers bars, write very single one of them down. If you don't, you are only cheating yourself. 
• Do not eat differently than you normally would.  Otherwise, you will not get an accurate depiction of what you eat on a daily basis. 
• Lastly, make sure one of those days is a weekend! Some people have a tendency to eat differently on weekends, or drink beverages they don't normally drink during the week (eh, em... alcohol).
• After you track what you eat for a few days, enter it into a program such as MyFitnessPal. This is a government ran app, you can track your daily food intake, and track your exercise. 
• If you prefer, you can even enter your food intakes into the app on a meal or daily basis instead of waiting until the end of the three days.  Do note, you may pay more attention to calories, fat and protein consumed if you enter your intakes in to MyFitnessPal the same day you are eating, this can cause you to have a slightly different picture of what you actually eat.  This is because you are paying more attention to your food, and you are less likely to eat mindlessly (i.e. those 4 fun size Snickers bars).  

These first couple of steps may seem tedious, but they are basic... and necessary. Think about it, if (or when) you plan your financial budget, you have to track your spending for a few months to get an idea as to where all your money goes. Same concept! You must track EVERYTHING you eat for a few days in order to get a better picture of what you eat everyday.  Writing down you food intake everyday will also give you an idea as to we're to start you journey to a eating healthy lifestyle.

Let's think of some examples of what you can change after you track your food intake.

• BEVERAGES: Do you drink a lot of calorie and sugar filled beverages? Juice, soda, whole milk, or alcohol? If you are drinking anything other than plain water, plain coffee or plain tea (no added sugars, sweeteners or creamers), you can probably use some help in this area
• Do you drink whole, try switching to 2% milk.  Or if you already drink 2%, aim for 1% or fat-free.
• SNACKS: Do you have a lot of little snacks through out the day? Those little candies from the jar on secretary's desk can add up significantly over time. Consider taking a mid-afternoon snack with you to work, that way you aren't raiding the candy drawer at 2 or 3pm to make it to the end of the work day. This may even help hold you over until dinner better and help you to not over eat dinner! Win-win!
• ADD-ONS: Do you add a lot of ranch, cheese, butter or other fatty, calorie filled food item, dip or added fat to your foods? Try cutting back, if not cutting it out.
• SKIPPING MEALS: Do you skip breakfast? Or another meal? It's probably best to have a least a snack instead of completely skipping. Otherwise, once you do end up eating, you are far more likely to overindulge.  That then leads to extra calories consumed and weight gain, and is not beneficial to your eating healthy lifestyle.

These are just many ideas to get a jump start on your path to eating right for your healthy diet lifestyle.

• By no means should you do everyone of these things at once!!! Repeat, do NOT attempt to make all these changes at one time. 
• You should pick only one thing to change and dedicate your focus to that. Once you have mastered than, move onto the next lifestyle change to master. 
• Changes should be made no more frequently than once a week, and more ideally, should be done with a 2-3 weeks period apart from one another.  This will help you to be successful and master your new changes in lifestyle!!

If you already know one of your weaknesses, without doing the food intake for three days... consider picking a small change you know will help you, but is also FEASIBLE!  If your goal means to give up something you know you will pick up again in 6 months and eat an entire grocery store's worth of that item, pick something else.  You want to pick something that you know you can change, that way you set yourself up for SUCCESS! 

Good Luck! And remember, start today with ONE small change towards a better lifestyle.