Our health goals are most often closely related to our eating habits. Should we want to lose our belly fat, then we have to start by changing the ways we eat.
We have goals for our careers, our finances and our relationships. They are expressions of our inner desires or what we want from our lives. Often, we write them down to make them more concrete and also to serve as reminders to ourselves to keep moving towards them. So, let’s do the same for health goals.
When it comes to our health, we often have fitness and food goals, like losing weight, exercising regularly, eating healthier or making better food choices. Losing weight could take months, exercising regularly could take years while eating healthier and making better food choices are difficult to measure.
Hence, we often get discouraged and give up on our health goals long before we reach them. So, to keep on track, why not break our health goals down into smaller and more realistic steps, steps that are easier to measure and track on a weekly basis so we can see our progress and keep motivated.
For example, we could set a smaller goal to develop a healthy eating habit, like drinking water instead of a sweetened drinks at lunch.
Here are 5 simple eating habits which will definitely help us attain our health goals, and for those of us with diabetes, these eating habits will certainly also help us better control those blood sugar levels.
Choose Water
Let’s set a goal to drink water instead of sugar-sweetened drinks. To make this more measurable, we’ll keep track by writing down how often we make this choice.
Eat Slowly and Mindfully
It takes about 15 – 20 minutes from the time we start eating to the time our brain sends out the message that we’re full. So, let’s eat slowly, pay attention to what we are eating and how much we are eating. To make this more measurable, let’s keep track by writing down how often we make an effort to take at least a half hour to finish our main meals.
Stick to One Serving
For those of us who love having seconds, let’s challenge ourselves to try sticking to one serving. This will help us keep our calorie intake in check, but we also need to stick to standard portion sizes.
Lots of Fruit and Vegetables
Let’s set a goal to fill half our plate with fruit and vegetables at every meal. Fruit and vegetables are naturally low in saturated and trans fats, and rich in dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals.
Swop to Wholegrains
Eating wholegrain foods such as brown rice, wholemeal bread and rolled oats can help us reduce the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes. They also help us with weight management because they keep us feeling fuller for longer, which reduces our need to snack between meals. So, let’s set a goal to ask for brown rice at lunchtime and keep track by writing down how often we make this choice.
These 5 simple eating habits will take us time to develop and master, so let’s be patient with ourselves. If we forget, let’s not give up, we’ll just try again next time. By keeping track and writing them down, we make them easier to keep track of and we can strive to keep improving on them in the next week. No matter how small these 5 simple changes might seem, they’re sure to start adding up to a huge difference to our health in the long run. Let’s see them as starting blocks, and once we’ve started mastering them, we’ll hopefully start questioning some of our other eating habits, the snowball effect as they refer to it.
Some Other Habits to Help at Attaining Our Health Goals
Aside from these 5 simple eating habits, here are some other habits we can work at developing to help us chip away at our health goals.
- Eating breakfast every day
- Sleeping seven to eight hours every night
- Choosing healthier snacks such as a piece of fruit or a handful of unsalted nuts
- Brisk walking at least 20 minutes every day or 140 minutes per week
- No more than three hours of Television a day
Munchies4U does not provide professional dietary advice. If you or someone you care for has special dietary requirements, medical needs or an eating disorder, please seek advice from a registered healthcare professional.
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