Trick Yourself into Eating Healthier
By Sara Butler
It’s no secret that prepackaged and processed foods are easier – and over time you crave the way they taste too. All those crazy preservatives and additives can become addictive to your taste buds. If you’re endeavoring to eat healthier, the idea of healthy foods may not seem as appealing, but there are some things you can do to make the transition easier. Here are a few tricks to help get you hooked on healthy foods.
Block Out Your Childhood Food Memories
If you’ve not let a Brussels sprout past your lips since you were in the second grade, you need to forget how you felt back then and give it a grown-up try. It can be difficult to let go of preconceived ideas about certain foods, even if your adult brain knows they’re good for you. Here’s the thing: You’ve got to give it another try.
You are the master of your food preparation destiny, so if you hated broccoli ever since you could speak,give it another try with a different preparation. You can prepare vegetables and other foods any way you want and who knows? You might just like it this time.
Keep Healthy Stuff Around
People like the foods they surround themselves with every day, so surround yourself with foods that are good for you. Instead of stocking the shelves with fish sticks or boxed macaroni and cheese, keep whole grain pasta and fish fillets on hand. Once you get used to having the better stuff in your cabinets then you’ll probably start to crave it more.
Baby Steps
You can’t go from a steady diet of fast food to a raw food diet in one fell swoop – unless you want to fail at this whole healthy eating thing. Instead, make small changes that lead to bigger changes down the road. Snack on carrots with ranch dressing and then eventually graduate to something a bit healthier, such as hummus for the dip. You don’t have to like plain raw carrots if you don’t want to, but you might be surprised how easy it is to make small changes to help form healthier habits.
Eat When You’re Hungry
One big pitfall of eating healthier is eating when you’re not hungry. It doesn’t matter what you’re eating, it could be the healthiest food in the world. Eating when you’re not hungry is a bad habit to feed. Ask yourself when you go to grab a snack if you’re actually hungry or just bored? If your stomach isn’t rumbling, then maybe you should just walk out of the kitchen and come back when it is.