For most of us, the problem is not making resolutions to eat healthier, but figuring out how to stick with your healthy eating habits.
The solution is small – actually, it’s almost micro!
Even the smallest changes in your routine can have a big impact on your health. You already know that all-or-nothing diets don’t work. Your resolution to eat healthier can become a reality. Here we’ve collected the science you need to know to achieve sustainable weight loss, on your wellness journey. This is your guide to healthy eating habits you’ll love for life!
7 Small Healthy Eating Habits You’ll Love for Life
How Do You Make a Good Resolution (You Can Stick With)?
The secret to making your resolution into reality isn’t obedience or discipline. In fact, evidence shows the way to transform a resolution into a habit is to adopt small changes to your healthy eating habits, that you actually love. It’s easier to stick with a new habit, if it fits into your lifestyle, and brings joy. Eventually, a chosen behaviour becomes automatic and effortless. It’s a holistic approach to healthy eating – and, it works!
Diets don’t work. But, you already knew that. Diets encourage restrictive eating habits that are hard to follow. When you eventually fail to maintain the diet, you feel frustrated.
The reason diets fail is not because people lack obedience, but the lack of understanding that you are more than what you eat. Emotions, values, schedules, household environment, and dietary preferences drive your eating habits. If a diet doesn’t consider these holistic factors, you can’t stick with it.
Make a resolution you can stick with. Ditch the diet – make smarter eating choices for better health and lasting results.
The key to long-term success lies not in drastic changes but, in the incorporation of small, sustainable changes you can turn into habits. Research consistently supports the idea that small, gradual adjustments to your lifestyle can lead to lasting transformations, especially when it comes to weight loss.
Called micro-habits, scientists say small manageable choices are the best way to make lifelong changes. Numerous studies highlight the efficacy of making small changes in nutrition and physical activity behaviours to prevent weight gain, as well as promote and sustain weight loss. Manageable small adjustments establish lifelong habits.
Your body is incredibly good at telling you what it needs – but, are you listening? Recognize and respond to your body’s hunger cues. When you wait too long to eat, it’s hard to resist sugar, fatty, or processed foods. If you’re starving it’s impossible to stick to your healthy eating habits. Busy days can make it hard to eat healthy, making meal planning and easy dinner ideas key to success. (Need some support in the kitchen? Build your confidence in the CSNN Holistic Culinary Certificate.)
When eating, be mindful of the process, chewing and tasting your food while listening to your body’s response. Turn off the television. Put down your phone. Eating without distraction helps you acknowledge your fullness cues. And, be sure to ignore the social pressure, such as to finish your plate: only you know when you’ve had enough to eat.
Your sleep may be preventing you from maintaining your health. Researchers know sleep restriction increases hunger and food intake, making it harder to stick with your resolutions to improve your healthy eating habits. Part of building healthy eating habits you’ll love for life is making space for sleep. A lack of sleep impacts your entire body, mind, and spirit. Take a holistic approach to your health resolution to get bigger results. Discover how the various aspects of your lifestyle are integrated into your wellness in the evidence-based CSNN Natural Nutrition Program.
How to Stick with Healthy Habits: The Role of Nutrition Education
Understanding the nutritional value of food is pivotal in making informed choices. The Canadian School of Natural Nutrition emphasizes the importance of education in developing a comprehensive approach to healthy eating. A solid understanding of the benefits of various nutrients empowers individuals to make choices that align with their health goals.
Why You Can’t Lose Weight with Food Alone: A Holistic Approach to Weight Management
No matter what you know about the food you should put on your fork, you can’t stick with healthy eating habits if your lifestyle makes it hard. The reason you eat less healthy foods is because they are comforting. Offering a high of sorts, a hit of sugar to boost your energy when you’re tired, or a salty, crunchy snack to destress you after a difficult day. Stress and a lack of sleep are major factors limiting your resilience and capacity to navigate unhealthy habits.
A holistic approach to wellness recognizes that health is a multi-faceted concept, encompassing not only dietary habits but also physical activity, mental well-being, stress management, and social support.
Building lifelong healthy eating habits and achieving sustainable weight loss is not a sprint, it’s a journey. Embrace the science-backed strategies discussed above, to create lasting changes that contribute to your overall well-being. The holistic approach advocated by the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition uses these evidence-backed principles to help you put it all together, so you and others you work with can achieve success. Emphasizing the interconnectedness of nutrition, lifestyle, and mental health gets bigger results.
Remember, the journey to a healthier you is not about perfection – it’s about progress.
So, start small.
Stay consistent.
And, enjoy the transformative journey toward lifelong wellness!
REFERENCES:
Healthy eating is a new way of life: a qualitative study of successful long-term diet change. Inquiry 2022 Jan-Dec; 59: 00469580221090397.
Small changes to diet and physical activity behaviours for weight management. Obes Facts 2013;6(3):228-38.
Micro-habits for life-long learning. Abdom Radiol (NY): 2021 Dec; 46(12):5509-5512.
Making health habitual: the psychology of ‘habit-formation’ and general practice. Br J Gen Pract 2012 Dec; 62(605): 664-666.
