with Stefani Ruper
Introduction
Good food is one of the keys to a good life. Physical fitness, plentiful energy, mental acuity, and longevity are all results of a healthy diet.
Yet eating healthfully in today’s hyper-stimulated, hyper-abundant world can seem impossible. How many times have you committed yourself to a sugar-free week and then had to stare down a plate full of doughnuts at a business meeting ten minutes later? Or planned to make yourself dinner one night but found yourself so exhausted by 7pm that pizza seemed like the only option? The modern diet is a perfect storm of temptation and convenience. It’s no wonder nearly all of us struggle to eat healthfully.
But it’s not actually hard. And it’s not actually bad. It’s easy. And good.
With a few simple shifts in perspective and lifestyle design, being loyal to a healthy diet is an easy, enjoyable part of everyday life.
Here’s how:
The Top 10 Big Ideas
- Know What You’re Up Against
Most processed foods like chips, cookies and French fries have been designed to make you addicted to them. Sugar is also actively addictive. In fact, rodent studies indicate that sugar is even more addictive than cocaine.
Processed foods (often even “healthy” ones like breakfast cereal) are usually both incredibly unhealthy and incredibly hard to resist. The more of them you eat, the more of them you crave.
Plus, the companies that produce them want you to be addicted. This is the best way for them to increase profits.
The more you know about the antagonists in this story, the more empowered you are to say “No.” Get indignant. Marshall your self-defenses. Don’t let someone’s bottom line hijack your hunger and destroy your health.
- Don’t Fear Fat
Diet dogma says fat is the enemy. It isn’t. You need fat to absorb many vitamins and minerals, particularly A, D, and K, and you need fat in order to feel satisfied after a meal. Without fat, you will likely feel hungry most of the time.
Hold off on deep-fried food and vegetable oil (canola, soybean, and corn, for example) which are toxic to the body in even moderate doses. Focus on the good fats: coconut oil, olive oil, eggs, bacon, lard, and other animal fats. They will significantly help you feel healthy, vibrant, and satisfied.
- Make Cooking Easy
Many people write off cooking at home because it’s too challenging or time consuming, but they’re wrong. It only seems that way if you haven’t made a plan for your own cooking agenda. Take a look at your schedule, and design a cooking plan that fits the most easily into your unique life.
There are three helpful hacks that can make cooking easier for everyone:
- Always have the ingredients on hand for a few simple dishes you’ve mastered for your go-to meals.
- Make fast, simple meals when time is short. Cooking can be as fast as cut up vegetables in a bowl in the microwave. That’s five minutes of prep time, tops.
- Make meals ahead of time. Sundays are excellent days to spend a couple of hours making a stir fry that you can package up for lunch during the week.
- Keep Healthy Food on Hand
Jerky, nuts, fruit, vegetable sticks, and avocadoes all travel very well. These are excellent alternatives to chips or doughnuts, and can keep you happily tied over until your next meal. Keep them in your desk, in your car, or in your purse, and pack them for long travels.
- Make Healthy Food the Choice, Not the Rule
Asking “Can I eat this?” is diet mistakes 101. Of course you can. The problem is thinking that you can’t.
When you forbid certain foods, you make yourself feel deprived (whether you know it or not). This is horrible for maintaining a healthy diet, because you end up obsessing over how much you’re missing out on.
Think instead in terms of guidelines. Of course it’s okay to eat pretzels once in a while. But you know how much better you feel and how much healthier you are when you eat vegetables, so make vegetables the happy choice, not the rule.
- Love Your Body and Yourself
The most important tool in every healthy person’s toolkit is love.
Love is the power that enables you to make hard decisions. Say you’re used to indulging in a beer every day after work. What’s the best way to change this unhealthy habit? Love yourself, your body, and your life enough simply to make it so.
Change is not always easy. Yet the more you love yourself, the less willpower it requires. Love makes you want instead of feel like you have to eat healthfully.
You can cultivate self-love in myriads of ways. Some are by deconstructing the sources of your low self-esteem, by setting aside a chunk of time every day to affirm your worth, or by surrounding yourself with loving, positive people.
- Examine Why You Eat
Every time you eat for the next several days, ask yourself: are you eating because you are hungry, or are you eating because of the emotional state you are in? Bored? Depressed? Stressed? Reeling from a negative experience? Feeling down about yourself?
Food is a powerful anaesthetic, and millions of people are chronic emotional eaters. Overcome emotional eating by confronting the underlying problem – for example, by tackling your low self-esteem, or by reducing your exposure to stressful situations.
- Never Punish Yourself for What You’ve Eaten
Sometimes we eat unhealthy food. Sometimes we eat “too much.” Sometimes we walk away from a meal hitting ourselves on the head thinking “stupid, stupid, stupid.”
But there’s no point to regret. It’s happened. Move on. You didn’t do anything wrong. You simply made a food choice. It might not have been the most healthy food you could have eaten, but that’s okay.
Negative feelings about yourself create powerful cravings for more unhealthy food. Don’t be upset with yourself. Accept the past, give yourself a hug, and focus on the future with love and excitement
- Focus on the Way You Feel, Not the Way You Look
It is okay to want to be attractive. I know that I certainly do. The problem with prioritizing looks over health is that your looks will not always reward you the way that you want.
For example, your weight loss may not be as fast as you’d like, or you may simply find that your natural, healthy size is not the same as a supermodel’s. And your weight will certainly fluctuate with different periods in your life like pregnancy, menopause, illness, and old age. These things are all okay. Your body is doing its best to be healthy at all of these times. The best thing you can do for it in turn is nourish it regardless of the way it looks. Health is the ultimate goal. Looks are secondary at best (and not what make you a beautiful or worthwhile human being, anyway.)
When you focus on health, you won’t find yourself reaching for the bag of potato chips because you feel discouraged, hopeless, or angry. Every healthy food choice heals your body a little bit more and enables you to be the vibrant, happy person you were born to be.
- Eat Heartily
Modern dogma says that less food is better, but it’s wrong. The most important part of your diet is the quality of the food. Not the quantity.
So don’t restrict yourself. Don’t count calories – even if weight loss is your goal. Focus on natural, whole foods, and eat as many of them as you crave. Your body will know when it’s the right time to stop.
Food restriction inevitably leads to over-eating. It creates a backlog of hunger signals and cravings for bad food that you will not be able to resist. In fact, this phenomenon is so powerful that deciding to eat more may well be the healthiest decision you ever make.
