3 Easy Changes That Will Improve Your Eating Habits
“The food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful form of medicine — or the slowest form of poison” — Anne Wigmore
I’m all about taking action, so I pulled together this (obvious) list of easy changes you can make in your dietary life that will make you healthier.
Seriously. Do these things.
1. Downgrade The Size Of Your Plate
Growing up my parents had a super exclusive club my sister, and I would try to get into every time we ate.
That club was the “Clean Plate Club.”
It was an ingenious way to get my sister and me to compete and finish our food at the same time.
What it also made us do was gorge ourselves regardless of the size of the plate.
People have a knack for filling space, regardless of its size. Buy a bigger house, fill it with more things. Downgrade to a smaller home, holy shit where do we put everything! Better get storage!
This is how food consumption works too. The size of your plate determines the size of your portions.
Get rid of your large plates, and invest in smaller ones. It’s weird how this works, but it does. Smaller plates mean fewer calories consumed.
When you’re out at a restaurant, downgrade to a smaller plate, then ask for storage in the form of a to-go container. Ask for this right after ordering, before your food arrives.
Then when that food arrives, immediately put half of the food in the to-go box, before you take that first bite.
If you’re still hungry after clearing your plate, you can dig into the to-go container, if you must.
It’s full proof; and easy.
2. Eat The Greens First
There is a reason why you put off dessert for the end of the meal.
What you eat first is what will fill you up first. So, eat the most nutritious foods first, while you still have space.
That way you get the nutrition in, and you eat the least fun part of the meal right away before your willpower dies a horrible sugary death.
This trick does require that you either cook or order veggies to begin with, so that requires some effort, but I believe in you!
Notice how I am not restricting your diet at all here! Just requesting that you eat the healthy stuff first. Do it.
Hopefully, the smaller plate and veggies first will fill you up some so that you don’t overeat the fried chicken or cheesecake.
One can hope.
3. Empty Your House of Junk Food
I find it ironic that the header image I chose for this section is veggies that are being dumped.
Don’t dump the veggies. Dump that bad food! The candy, chocolate, waffles, etc.
Anything that will tempt you to choose sugary foods over healthy foods. If you make it harder on yourself to eat lousy food, you won’t eat as much of it! Then you will be healthier.
I personally love Blue Diamond Almonds in place of junk food. They are delicious. (If you have a nut allergy do not click that link)
It might feel wasteful to throw away things that you have bought, but let’s review the image below.
Would you feel bad about throwing away poison? No. No, you would not.
So don’t feel bad throwing away foods that will derail your goals.
If you do just these three things, you will become healthier rather quickly. There are, of course, other things you can do.
If you’re interested in learning more, I wrote a post on the 5 Best Books On Eating Healthier that should put you in the right direction.
