Eating is an individual process and everyone of us relates it to different emotions. For some people it is the favorite part of the day, for some others it’s like the best friend’s shoulder that is always there whenever they are sad or a bit depressed. There are other people that link it with gatherings, celebrations, a good conversation or a good movie. What we know for sure is that what you eat definitely affects our overall health in a longterm and significant way. Said this, it is very important to develop healthy habits, that would just bring positive outcomes in our direction. I had some thoughts on this topic based also on my personal experience and decided to write them down in this post.
1. Clean your living area from food that just gives you an instant pleasure but no long lasting value. Let it be your room, your fridge (house) or office. Remove all the junk food and substitute it with healthy choices like fruit, vegetables and healthy grains. This was the first tip that helped me to transition to vegan overnight. As a student who lived alone and ate in the Mensa I used to not cook so often, and I never liked to buy junk food in bulk so this step was pretty easy for me as I basically had no food at home. I can seriously say that this is the most helpful tip. Being surrounded by fruit especially, whenever you are or think to be hungry you will reach for a healthy choice that will fill you and equilibrate the feeling of being hungry.
2. Put some daily order (e.g. morning routine). Some months ago I decided to get into yoga and I was practicing it every morning, just 10 minutes. Furthermore, I was drinking 600ml of water first thing in the morning. I kept both habits for a while and I should say I noticed outstanding results immediately after the second day. I was more prone to organize the rest of my day, to stick to healthy food, to focus on things I recalled as important, to spend less time in watching vegan youtube videos (facepalm) but rather read the books I wanted to. I stopped doing yoga and tried waking up at 5 am. to go for a walk. I had even better results. I would come back home, eat breakfast, finish routine work even before other people would wake up. Travelling many times outside Germany made it difficult to stick to these habits but I am starting to bring some of them back, because now I know how beneficial an organized morning can be.
3. Take some time during the weekend to prepare healthy snacks for the whole week (e.g. carrots, celery sprinkled with balsamic vinegar). Sunday is a good opportunity to relax, take time for yourself, try to do something interesting and different (especially if the week was too much of a routine), to experiment in the kitchen. I remember to have watched a bodybuilding page in Instagram; the girl pre-prepared all the meals of the week in order to stick to her strongly disciplined plan and I was so inspired. I thought a bit and realized that the most critical thing when you are all day home is to avoid eating when you are not hungry. I opened the fridge and noticed some carrots and celery. Great! I chopped them in sticks, put them in food containers, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and stored them in the fridge. Everytime I felt to eat something I would poke this stored snack. It lasted for 4-5 days. This was a smart choice as all the components are very good sources of nutritive elements but they are also low in calories so that you don’t feel too full and unable to proceed doing other things because of a heavy stomach.
4. Eat the biggest meal of the day at home; Cook at least once a day: for me, apart the big delicious breakfast, dinner is the biggest next meal. I chose dinner because I am home and can cook it by myself. Especially in winter, I love to have a tasty, big, cooked meal and not that I am a great cook, but lately I enjoy my dishes over everything else; therefore, I decided to pick dinner.
Eat well before going out: If you know you are going to be out for a long time and there are not so many healthy (vegan or not) options than better charge your batteries home. Hunger is a bad advisor and most of the times it brings you to horrible choices that are more junk oriented than nutritive.
5. Don’t be scared to motivate instead of falling in the junk/comfort zone of your family/friends/colleagues. It really embarrassed me in the beginning to reveal my food preferences out loud. I knew people would immediately start to comment on it and that would most probably bring the conversation to no where. I would usually say just “No, thanks” whenever I was offered food I did not want to eat and people would think I was dieting. Others would come out with comments like “Oh, food is a pleasure, I would never restrict myself from anything just to look slimmer.”; “I basically eat everything, you only live once, I am glad I can feel happy with my body even without having to restrict myself.” And I would laugh with myself on it because the reasons I was neglecting a special type of food were completely others. Being a vegan for a longer time and getting informed on it made me understand that I was highly inspired by people who eat to think, to live, to be able to work, do sports and not because some dishes are too difficult to resist, or because rules are made to be broken, or because everyone eats junk, or because food is the highest pleasure in life, bla bla bla. There I understood that I would love to meet the first type of people, those who motivate you, those who love themselves and work every single moment on themselves. I would say that going vegan helped me to know myself better, what I wanted to be and where I wanted to go. I began to openly say why I would not eat meat, why I was against dairy, why I was following this specific type of lifestyle. Throughout these years I got asked so many questions on this lifestyle. There were even people who switched to vegan. Trust me, it feels amazing when you receive grateful messages or hear that you became a motivation for someone else. Anyway, remember, the only person you have to impress is yourself, the rest will follow eventually.
6. You ate your big/healthy/delicious breakfast? OK! Now you can think on which healthy choices to make for the rest of the day. When you have a full stomach, especially when you filled it with good food ,you think nothing is impossible 😀 Ok, a bit hyperbolised but seriously, I feel very good, I feel I can be a better person 😀 so I use this time to also decide what am I going to eat the rest of the day. Let’s say I decided to have some delicious spaghetti for dinner. I go out and get involved in the daily routine. The thought of going home and cooking something delicious from which i can eat as much as I want prevents me from buying a small, expensive, not-fresh, perhaps junky meal. Happy stomach=clear mind!
7. Water before every meal. To support this habit I would like to put several points into focus. We all know the benefits of drinking plenty of water. We know that our stomach has a volume which can be filled with liquids or food. What we know for sure is that sometimes we think we are hungry even when we are not, even when a glass of water can easily bring this “hunger” away. As you can see our body is a bit complex and you need to have a very good relationship with it so that it gives you the right signals. It doesn’t require for flowers of course, but it requires for good food, for micro and macro nutrients and for good eating habits, such as chewing our food, eating slowly etc. My logic brings me to the following explanation: by starting a meal with water we activate the eating receptors. The body realises that an eating or drinking process is starting; therefore, it activates the necessary components that participate in this process. After we drink the water a part of our stomach is filled and we are not as hungry as before. This allows our body to take its time to get prepared for an eating process, in the meantime, due to our current (lowered) hunger feeling, we decide how much we are willing to put in our plate and for sure what. We can take our time to sit properly, to start eating slowly and to chew our food. I explained the benefits of such an attitude some posts ago, and we can easily bring them in this context too.
8. Go for healthy snacks. In case you are out and feel hungry there is nothing wrong to drop by and buy some fruit (apple, banana, berries.) They’re not just a healthy choice but also a good stomach-volume filler; therefore, a smart decision that will keep the hunger away for some good hours.
This would be some of my recommendations, you for sure have yours. I would love to read some of those down in the comments below.
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