You can train your body to crave healthy food. First, get in touch with how healthy food makes you feel. Nutrient dense food gives more energy, helps with mood, aides in gut health, makes you less sluggish, improves quality of sleep, and helps with weight management!
Eating healthy also helps prevent, delay, and manage heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. The more conscious you become of how healthy eating literally fuels your body and brain, the more you will want it.
Don’t burn yourself out, you don’t need to switch your eating habits 180 degrees overnight. Start to incorporate new healthy habits to eventually create an overall healthy lifestyle. I am a big proponent of stating goals in the affirmative. I never thrived in a “buck up, buttercup” regime.
Save your will power for when you really need it. Take a few minutes and write down a list of things you know will be better for your health. Drink more water or eat an apple or veggie snack every day rather than a processed treat. Make meals with veggies or salad each day. Eat clean and lean meats, and whole grains. Eat meals between noon and 6pm to give your body a break, intermittent fast.
The list can be as long or short. I would encourage you to keep it short and specific, something that you can easily check off in your head. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is overly processed and filled with sweet, salty and sugary foods, and it can be so hard for your taste buds to get past all those, dare I say addictive, flavors. Which is why I am encouraging you to add in, on purpose, foods in their preprocessed form. It can be hard to retrain our taste buds, but it’s possible!
If you are feeling the need for change, start small, be kind to yourself and don’t give up. Adding healthy food is always a win and if you find yourself eating the old way, take a deep breath and assess why, and then start again.
Your health is so important.
We’re all in different places and our lists will look different. What’s on my list? 1. Drink a fruit/veggie smoothie 5x/week, 2. Drink herbal tea 5x/week, 3. Eat between noon and 6pm most days, 4. Create meals that are made up of 75% fruit, vegetables and salads.
Thank you,
Tristan, Joelle and The Box of Good Crew