Eating healthy is a pain for a lot of people. We’re not taught how. Advice often seems like it makes eating a chore. There’s also a lot of really tasty stuff that will also kill us – and is easy to prepare.
Now I do advise you to eat healthy, because let’s face it right now a lot of people are eating utter crap and killing themselves. Just reading about current health trends gives me bouts of empathetic hypochondria. That would also be a good band name.
One thing that has helped me that I can pass on is to start eating healthy, start with eating healthy foods you like.
Maybe you like carrots, or cherry tomatoes, or whatever. Take an inventory of things that you like to eat that are good for you (with appropriate research or consultation) and then start eating them more regularly. Reach for that plain yogurt with honey over a milkshake, or that homemade energy bar over a candy bar, or what have you.
You may just surprise yourself. There’s probably lots of stuff that’s good for you that you didn’t think about before.
This makes it a lot easier as you’re eating good things and thus have less room for bad things – and you’re not noticing the loss of deliciousness. If you find enough healthy foods you enjoy, you can flesh out your menu without feeling much sense of loss at all – and have the gain of feeling better and probably enjoying more natural tastes.
Here’s what I advise:
- Take an inventory of healthy things you enjoy. Think them over because some things are not obviously healthy, some aren’t as healthy as we think, and some are good in moderation (like fatty but nutritious nuts). Also don’t forget some things are only bad to us due to additional things – maybe if you made your own low-fat vegetable dip you’d enjoy those carrots even more and be healthier.
- Figure out how you can work in these healthy foods into your diet. If you like spinach salads see where you can work them in as a side dish. If you like peanut-butter-on-green-apple then you’ve got a healthy snack.
- Rotate the foods you like so you don’t get sick of them – unless you find that’s not possible (I love cherry tomatoes, so I could eat them every other day).
- Explore what related foods and similar foods may be out there that are also healthy and add them to your repertoire.
- When you make a new discovery of something healthy-you-like add it to rotation. You may be surprised (I was surprised to find out how great Kale is for a salad).
So trying to eat healthy? Start with what you like – it’ll be easier on you.
– Steven Savage
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.
