Healthy eating can be harder than it looks

Healthy eating can be harder than it looks

All goes well in the first week of being on a diet or healthy eating plan, but give it a few weeks and the diet's out the window and you're back to your old eating habits. Fear not, we've got some motivational tips to help keep you encouraged and on track for your goal in 2012.

- Motivate your mind. If you set out on a diet the crucial thing is sticking to it in your mind. Tell yourself how you want to look or feel and even write down some goals to remind yourself why you're eating healthily. Remember these whenever you feel like sneaking a biscuit from the tin or pinching a chocolate off the tree.

- If you're planning to combine a healthy diet and exercise, choose exercise you enjoy. This is important because you're never going to keep something up that you loathe doing. It's effort motivating yourself to get to the gym even if you really enjoy it whilst you're there. Find something you like that you might even look forward to doing so it doesn't feel like a chore. Ask a friend to attend a dance or aerobics class to keep you company so somebody else can motivate you as well.

- Never skip breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day and your metabolism isn't kick started if you miss it. 

- Write down how well you're doing. If you're following a diet programme it's usually part of it to keep a record of your weight, what you're eating and how much you're exercising. Doing this will help visualise your weight loss and give you motivation to keep going.

- Drink water. Plenty and plenty of water! Often thirst is confused as hunger so instead of eating whenever you feel hungry, try drinking a large glass of water and see if it fills you up and keeps you going until meal time.

The last thing is to not beat yourself up or pack in altogether if you slip up. It's hard to completely change your eating habits and it can be really difficult when you're used to cooking certain foods or you have a family that still eats chocolate and cakes. If you do slip up, don't worry, make sure it doesn't happen again and make your next meal a super healthy one to make up for it!

 

Alexandra Baracskai