Healthy Eating:
Fighting the Urge to Rely On Comfort Foods
Too often people eat
to make themselves feel better rather than to satisfy their hunger. When you
eat for this reason,
the foods you crave are usually those loaded with sugar or fat rather than
healthy fruits and
veggies. In order to develop healthy eating habits, the reliance on comfort
foods needs to be
reduced or eliminated completely.
Reflect On Why You
Eat
Before reaching for a
candy bar when you’re in line at the grocery store, ask yourself if you
really need some
chocolate and why. If you’ve had a stressful day at work or you’ve been under
emotional strain, put
the candy back and try to find a healthier way to make yourself feel better.
Replacing exercise
with eating will not only maximize any weight loss goals, it will increase
your endorphins and
give you a huge self esteem boost.
Healthy Eating For
Dessert
A delicious dessert
at the end of a hard day can be the highlight of the evening for a lot of
people. Rather than
eating a piece of cake or bowl of ice cream, have a fresh bowl fruit salad or
some low-fat frozen
yogurt. Substituting your high calorie desserts for something a little
healthier can be a
guilt free way to finish your day.
Clear Out Your
Cupboards
Keeping chips and
cookies in the cupboards is too tempting for most people, especially after a
rough day. Throw out
all your junk food and when a craving hits you, you won’t be tempted by
fatty snack foods and
you’ll be more likely to munch on something much better for you.
Willpower can only
take you so far in your healthy eating goals, so avoid the candy aisles and
don’t even look in
the vending machines you walk past until you’ve trained yourself to resist
your junk food
cravings.
Don’t Negotiate
It’s easy to talk
yourself into having just one piece of cake or thinking that because you’ve had
a
rough day you deserve
it. After eating that one piece it’s pretty likely that you’ll feel guilty for
doing so and you may
end up feeling worse than you did before. By just being strict and laying
down the law, you’ll
probably feel much prouder of yourself for choosing the apple instead of
the cookie.
