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You want to change how you eat to a healthier eating lifestyle. Good for you. What are some of the road blocks and challenges you are likely to encounter (both from others and self-inflicted) on this adventure as you move yourself to a healthier eating lifestyle? Several challenges of changing how you eat come to mind right away, so let’s address three of these right now. Let’s talk about peer pressure, addiction and convenience.
Peer pressure! You may experience peer pressure not to change how you eat. A healthier diet may seem weird to others, may threaten their view of how they eat and how they treat their own bodies. I know I’ve experienced this from time to time myself. Changing how you eat may elicit a snicker here or a somewhat snide comment like, “Cheryl will never condone that…” is to be expected. When you do something like I’ve done occasionally…having a small sliver of birthday cake when there’s a celebration in the office, be prepared for the sing-song childish version of “Ohhh…Cheryl’s eating cake” to happen.
Then there’s addiction. This is your issue, but it’s not your fault. It’s critical you understand the big food giants have engineered their processed food products to be additive. That food is loaded with salt, sugar, bad fats and highly processed grains. Sugar has been proven to be as addictive as cocaine, and highly processed grains convert rapidly to sugar as well. Sugar lights up the pleasure centers in your brain. When you try to get off it, more than likely your cravings will begin, and more likely than not, they will make you miserable. Expect headaches, crankiness, etc. Getting past this stage is admittedly not the easiest thing to do, but once you cleanse your body of sugar, the cravings will stop. When you do have some sugar again, it just won’t taste as amazing as it once did. I know from personal experience this is true.
What about convenience? When you’re rushed and stressed, it’s faster and easier to grab a frozen dinner and pop it in the microwave or go out and pick up a pizza than it is to chop up a fresh salad. Ask yourself if you’re paying for convenience with your health. I can’t tell you how many times I talk about going out and picking up a pizza for dinner, and I don’t follow through on that thought. I know in the end, my health is better served if I throw together a quick salad. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Just some greens, carrots and a few berries topped with some canned tuna or mackerel will be a quick and easy meal. I’ll feel better and frankly, it will be a whole lot less expensive than paying for that pricey pizza with not that much to offer me nutritionally.
Don’t get me wrong. At some point, I will have that pizza. I just think about doing it more often that I actually do it.
When you decide to make changes to your healthy eating lifestyle, I want to encourage you to be realistic and know there will be cravings and peer pressure and time factors which sometimes is personal laziness (I speak from experience) that will challenge you. Just keep your end goal of better health through healthier eating in sight and surround yourself with like-minded people, either in the actual world or online. You can do this!
I invite you to subscribe to my new podcast “Major Health Tips in Digestible Bites”. I just dropped a new episode, so check out the great information that’s free for you to listen to anytime, anywhere!
This article was originally published on https://thinstronghealthy.com/changing-how-you-eat/
Helping You Achieve Major Wellness!
Cheryl A Major, CNWC
P.S. For more information, please follow me on Twitter – https://twitter.com/CherylAMajor Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cheryl.major.965
P.P.S. Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/cherylamajor
I don’t just teach this; I live it!
