If you want to change your eating habits to eat healthier, control your weight and feel better, pay attention because this article is for you.Without knowing it our best intention to improve all our food becomes our biggest obstacle,
because trying to change all your food decisions from one day to the next generates stress and frustration which makes you give up after a short time. Think about this: your daily diet is a set of habits, and the only way to have long-term results is to start changing those habits, one by one and little by little.
In this article you find an easy strategy with which you can start changing your eating habits by investing only a few minutes and with very little effort.
"We live in the false illusion that we act according to our thoughts, but in reality most of our decisions are unconscious" -Leonard Mlodinow.
I was flipping through a fashion magazine while I was waiting for my appointment with the dentist, and in the recipe section an ad appeared saying this:
Do you want to lose those extra kilos? Would you like to have a flat abdomen? I have the perfect solution for you. With this new Fat reducing tea you will burn the fat in those difficult areas and you will have a flat abdomen in just one week. Do you want to have the body you always dreamed of? Call now the phone that appears here and buy your fat burning tea. As a special seasonal promotion we give you with your purchase a firming ointment and removes express cellulite.
Real life case, it is a fragment taken from a product on sale that "promises" to burn fat.
The problem is that due to the multiple myths of feeding , many people do believe that a tea, an ointment, some "natural" tablets or a juice can achieve the results by skipping the process that means changing eating habits.
The only truth is that these products are a waste of time, you will only see a difference in your portfolio and also put your health at risk.
The same goes for fad diets that do not take into account the change in eating habits. Maybe you can see the results you are looking for, but these will last as long as you are late in returning to your previous diet, because the change is not permanent.
One research analyzed 31 food studies and found that a diet does not work in the long term. Within 5 years, about 70% of dieters gain weight (even more than the initial weight).
Think about this: it is estimated that an average of 226 food decisions are taken daily. Which includes what to eat, when, where and with whom.
It is impossible to improve all those decisions at the same time, because many of these food decisions are automatic and unconscious since they are habits that were formed over time. In fact, some scientists think that we are only aware in 5% of all our decisions and thoughts.
Therefore, it is illogical to think about changing all these decisions overnight, especially because the unhealthy eating habits did not form overnight, right?
This explains why it becomes difficult to re-take control and improve our food choices, and because all your attempts to eat healthier or lose weight will be completely useless if you start changing those habits that are not leaving you any good.
For example, some of the most common unhealthy eating habits are these here:
- Snacking between meals of junk foods
- Prefer sugary drinks instead of water
- Buy industrial foods (instead of cooking at home)
- Eat without paying attention and until being more than satisfied
- Binge eating
How to start changing my eating habits?
All your (healthy or unhealthy) are repeated with relative independence of intentions. That is to say that your intention to eat more vegetables may not be enough to get away from the chips completely.
And this happens because the habits are triggered by some reminder, which can be a specific time of the day, a visual stimulus, a person or simply the environment that surrounds us . The latter is capable of generating an automatic and unconscious response.
According to research, 47% of our daily activities follow a pattern and usually a certain location .
Which means that all our habits (including those of food) are triggered under the same environment or context as: certain circumstances, specific places, with certain people and / or under certain moods.
The above occurs because the brain is able to associate an activity (or a habit) with a specific place and time.
The environment triggers certain eating habits.
Think about your last vacation or the last time you stayed at your parents' house: your way of eating, sleeping or the time you showered were activities that changed compared to what you normally do at home. Even "that place" may trigger particular habits that you do not have anywhere else.
Returning to the topic of food: have you noticed that in certain places you tend to eat similar or practically the same?
For example: it is normal to sit in the same dining room chair, or eat in McDonalds when shopping at a mall; Some people buy ice cream only when they go to the park. Perhaps at night it is customary to go to buy sweet bread for dinner or go to a bar and eat chips or peanuts without thinking much.
It happens to me at the cinema, I can not avoid buying popcorn. The funny thing is that I only crave popcorn in the movies, I never make microwave popcorn or pan in my house, I do not buy popcorn in the street, I just like popcorn at the movies.
Another good example is the supermarket, it has been proven that we all buy almost the same food every week and eat similarly.
A change in the environment is key to changing eating habits.
A British study showed that people who had moved from home also changed their decisions about how they traveled. That is, instead of taking the car, they were more likely to decide to take the bus. Compared to people who did not move to a new house.
In another study, the use of the stairs and the use of the elevator were compared. On some stairs there was a sign that said "The use of stairs burns 5 times more calories". This change of environment with a simple piece of paper increased the use of stairs by 50%. This trick managed to make people aware of their habits and consciously modify them.
And this change of environment is also extremely effective when it comes to improving your eating habits .
It has been seen that when you achieve a change of environment, your eating habits also change, because unconsciously all around you is influencing your decisions about food.
When you manage to break those stimuli, changing your eating habits becomes easier because you become aware of your decisions, which prevents you from acting unconsciously.
An interesting study with popcorn can show the great effect of the environment on our diet.
The participants were divided into two groups: one group would be in a boardroom and the other in the cinema watching a movie. All the participants had popcorn buckets and the objective was to see if the consumption of popcorn increased or decreased according to the place, but the participants did not know it, they were told that it was a study about personality.
The participants who were in the meeting room ate 50% less popcorn compared to the movie theater, which had become popcorn-eating monsters.
In the same study, it was found that people who were asked to eat with the non-dominant hand ate less because they did so more consciously. They had managed to make a small change in the environment.
In another study it was shown that a visual reminder (like a food container) can also trigger specific eating habits. The results showed that when you have large containers of food ("bulk type") in sight you tend to eat much more. And as expected, the amount of the portion increases if the container is visible and accessible.
Imagine if you buy the extra-large package of cookies and they are visible in your kitchen or inside your desk drawer. The same goes for sugary 2.5-liter drinks, it's obvious that you'll drink much more.
In summary: the environment triggers our habits, therefore, a minimum change in the environment will manage to break some reminders that are unleashing our bad eating habits.
It sounds interesting and very easy, right?
It does not have to be a very extreme change, a minimum change will be enough.
For example: the place where you sit to eat, or the arrangement of food in the cupboard.
Remember that any change in habits is a constant process, which is definitely worth going through.
Changing your eating habits will become a new lifestyle (and not a diet) that you can follow forever, because it's not about forgetting all the food you like, it's about creating a sustainable way to improve your decisions for Eat healthier.
So you know, start changing your eating habits changing your environment and improve your life from now on.
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