Why You Shouldn’t Blame Yourself for your Crappy Eating Habits
So you’re trying to lose weight (stay young, be energized, achieve your athletic goals, etc.) through diet. But what happens when that super motivated version of yourself fades until you’re back to ordering pizza every night? We’ve all been there. Well I have some good news for you. Getting into that slump is NORMAL, it’s NOT YOUR FAULT, and YOU CAN CHANGE! Here are 3 primary reasons why you shouldn’t blame yourself for your poor eating habits:
- Misinformation
It’s a confusing world out there full of “eat this, don’t eat this…oh wait, now you CAN eat this”. It seems like every day there is a new fad diet confusing the public and causing a ruckus. There are so many changing opinions that it can be a real headache trying to decide which voices to follow (or to ignore). Although there are many different perspectives on human nutrition, there is overwhelming and consistent evidence that eating a plant based diet is the best way to have a healthy body and combat disease. It’s not just another fad diet. It’s science! Mind-blowing, life-saving, evidence based, Bill Nye would be proud-type of science. So shouldn’t everyone be eating a vegan diet? Yes. But they don’t know that they should.
Most people have actually been taught the wrong information their whole lives. From the Food pyramid to Myplate, the recommendations that the government gives us for diet are largely decided by food industry lobbyists (the meat and dairy industries really want our money). Yep, that’s right, what Americans are told is “healthy” isn’t always based on science. It should be, but it isn’t. Most of the time, it has something to do with big industries making money. If that seems hard to believe, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9vpohU4-zo. Questions about where our food came from and what influences us to buy that food in the first place are probably not things that the average consumer thinks about, but I can assure you that there are some pretty messed up things going on backstage.
Besides misinformation coming from our government and our education systems, you may have been misinformed by your doctor. On average, primary care physicians get less than 20 hours of nutrition education in their schooling. (https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/06/08/how-much-nutrition-education-do-doctors-get/) Isn’t that crazy?! I’d certainly want my doctor to know more about nutrition than an average middle-schooler. Although most medical professionals work honestly to help their patients, the norm in the USA is to prescribe drugs and perform operations. Those also happen to bring in more money than writing prescriptions for broccoli and kale. Our health system is one where instead of fixing a leaky faucet, we throw more and more towels on the floor to soak up the water. Bottom line, it’s not your fault if you’ve never been taught correct nutrition values and that our bodies are greatly affected by the food we eat.
2. You’re addicted
If you’ve tried and failed to permanently change your diet thus far, it’s probably in part due to addiction. Most of us are addicted to unhealthy foods, primarily salt, sugar and fat. Addictions are powerful! Food addictions have even been compared to drug addictions because the chemical reactions in our brains are almost identical. Once you have eaten certain kinds of foods for years and years, you become accustomed to them. Your body craves those foods, and so it tastes good and feels good when you eat them. You’ll choose string cheese over a carrot and hummus every time because your brain will get a little kick from the salt and the fat in the cheese, whereas the carrot will seem bland and boring to you (when really it’s delicious and healthy…put that cheese stick down!).
Just like any other unhealthy addiction, a food addiction can be hard to disrupt. But the good news is that retraining your brain is totally doable, especially if you have the right tools, which brings me to the third possible reason why it’s been so hard for you to change your diet.
3. You don’t have the right tools
One of my favorite things to do is build stuff. Something that I’ve noticed throughout all of my projects is that unless I have the right tools, the project will either take an eternity to finish and/or it won’t be done correctly. The same thing happens when we decide to start eating healthier. If we don’t have the right tools, it’s gonna be really hard to accomplish our goals. It’s like trying to pound in a nail with a saw, or cut through a board with a screwdriver, or twist in a screw with hammer, or…..ok you get it. My point is, when you take on something as big as changing your diet (and possibly your whole lifestyle), you need the right kind of tools and help.
I know it’s hard to be disciplined, that sometimes cooking a healthy meal is the last thing you want to be doing, and that donuts are irresistable! I’m human too! But I’ve discovered and hung on to the tools that make plant based living totally possible. And not just possible, but so fulfilling and wonderful!
So maybe you haven’t been eating as well as you know you should, but don’t get down on yourself. You don’t have to give up your health goals just because you’ve been dealt a bad hand. You can choose to make the necessary changes in your life to achieve optimal health right now. You can become educated, break your food addictions, and start using the right tools. It’s never too late to start thriving!
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We’ll help you! Start thriving now by checking out our social media pages. You’ll find things like community and mentors, recipes and meal plans, accurate current nutrition information, and constant motivation to eat what’s good for ya.
