The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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To eat healthy, it’s not enough to change what you eat - you have to change how you eat too.  Here’s some tips I have used to help change my eating habits:

Take small bites, leave some on the plate.

Eating less begins with eating less - practice by taking smaller bites.  Recondition your body and mind to recognize that you don’t actually need to eat that entire blooming onion, steak and salad to be satisfied.  Take smaller bites and leave portions on the table.  In fact, go ahead and box half your dinner up in a to-go container before you get started.  Trust me, you get full before you “feel full.”

Eat slowly, pause between each bite.

You get almost instantaneous feedback when pumping gas in your car - the instant the tank is full, it begins to run over or the pump shuts off.  You body doesn’t work that way (or at least mine doesn’t) - there’s a lag between swallowing my food and my body registering what I’ve swallowed.  Eating slowly and pausing gives my body a chance to give me an update on how much more fuel it needs, which prevents me from over-eating.  It also helps psychologically - the more time I have an empty mouth, the more focus I place on carrying a conversation, taking the focus and energy away from my hunger or the available food.

Drink water between bites.

Not only does drinking water during your meal help you achieve your daily water goal, but it also helps assist your digestion and prevent over-eating by filling you up.

Don’t snack during meals.

I used to be the world’s worst for eating appetizers, eating while I cooked or eating during cleanup.  In my mind, I discounted the samples and appetizers and focused only on the meals, which means I racked up uncounted calories and didn’t know where they came from.  Don’t eat the chips & salsa, don’t make a pre-dinner snack and don’t take three more bites of meatloaf before wrapping it up.  Force yourself to be honest and accountable - if you’re still actually hungry, eat more during the meal instead of snacking afterward.

Eat smaller meals more frequently through the day.

Before I changed my lifestyle, sugar highs and crashes caused my body to feel “hungry”, even though I did not actually need to eat.  These sugar highs don’t necessarily come from candy or chocolate - they can come from breads, pastas, sodas, fruit juices - anything that has high-fructose corn syrup or simple carbohydrates.  Now I eat 5 or 6 times a day, and keep my caloric intake to between 180 and 220 per “meal.”

Ironically, eating frequent, small meals helps me focus less on food, as I no longer bounce between full and hungry or over-eat now to prevent hunger later.  I have heard that bodies will slip into starvation mode if it doesn’t know when the next meal is; I am convinced the mind is the same - it spends energy on thinking about food when you bounce between full and hungry.  Now that I have reconditioned my body and mind through consistent, frequent meals, I rarely crave food.

What tips have you found useful to eating healthier?

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