Healthy eating is something that takes a lot of discipline and practice. Especially if you were not raised eating right, or if you have found yourself falling into patterns of unhealthy eating. Fortunately, changing a habit is a lot simpler than it might appear at first glance. If you are ready and willing to make a change that is lasting, then you will be able to change your habits and enjoy a healthy lifestyle from here on out.
Beginning steps
First, you must identify your unhealthy habits before you can begin to break them. This can be difficult for many people, but it can help to keep journals of your regular activities and habits, that way you can begin to identify patterns that are self-destructive. Once you have identified these self-destructive patterns, then you will find that you are able to predict when you may begin to act self-destructive we. A lot of the time, self-destructive actions have trigger points that you can identify. If you know what causes you to act out and want to do things that will sabotage your efforts, then you can more easily avoid them or realize what is happening before you give up and lose your progress.
Next, after you have identified your negative habits, it is time to try some intervention. Instead of allowing yourself to run on autopilot so that your brain is doing whatever it wants to do whenever it wants to do it and your body is forced to follow suit, you must start to take control over your mind. If you do not control your mind, then you do not control anything about yourself.
Mind over matter
If need be, you may want to enlist the help of a qualified professional who may be able to help you to identify your negative patterns and address them in a healthy way. Regardless, you have the power to change your habits. Once you have identified them, and you know that you are going down a negative thought spiral, you can interrupt your thoughts and redirect them toward something more positive.
For example, if you find yourself thinking about how wonderful it would be to eat at a fast food restaurant, instead of brainwashing yourself with memories of the chemically induced flavors of fast food, instead, do some research and make a list of all the reasons why fast food is unhealthy and addictive and chemically terrible for your body. Whenever you start to have a craving for the bad food, interrupt those positive thoughts with the negative reality.
That will help to dissuade you from eating foods that are terrible for you and encourage you to seek out better sources of nourishment. Being able to identify these negative thought patterns and addressing them through a physical change in your neurons by interrupting them with positive thoughts instead is a way to physically rewire your brain so that you are no longer a slave to your impulses. And that is how healthy eating begins!
