So far the hardest thing about losing weight is the eating healthy part. I can make it to the gym 5 days a week no problems (I actually enjoy going most of the time). I can even eat under my calorie count with little trouble. So why do I have so many problems with eating a healthy meals? I've never had much of a problem with eating snack foods (with the exception of ice cream...man I do love me some ice cream). My problem is eating too much of the bad foods, like fried stuff, red meat, pastas and starches like potatoes. Now, I have pretty much cut out fried foods, but I'm still not doing good with the other stuff and I know you can't out train your diet. So my question is....
How does one make healthy eating a habit when bad eating has been part of their whole life?
I'm afraid my eating habits are killing my progress. The problem is I don't know how to cook healthy. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook and I think i am pretty decent at it, but I have no idea how to do it healthy. Walking around the store I can come up with a dozen different recipes in my head for dinner I shouldn't be eating, but when I try to do that with stuff that is good for me I can't come up with one.
I realize I should plan my dinners beforehand, but when it comes to dinner it's hard. With breakfast and lunch I am pretty much on my own, but for dinner I need to come up with stuff that both myself and my girlfriend like.
Am I just being lazy, should eating better be easier? What are some of the problems that everyone else has had to overcome in terms of eating better and how did you do it? We are all in this because we are/were overweight. So that means for some time we were all making bad eating choices. How did you break the habit?
Well, I am off to the gym. We finally have a nice day here where you don't melt when going outside, so I think I am going to take advantage of it.
Vinny, you answered your own questions with your post. That doesn't mean comitting to the actions is easy, but knowing what to do is the first step. You said; "I realize I should plan my dinners beforehand"... For me this was a big help. Breakfast & Lunch are easy for me to control due to my work setting. But dinner, if not planned for, when I got home, free for all man. I made and ate whatever my hunger told me to. Today, We preplan out the week, we grocery shop according to the plan, and whatever is for dinner that night is what we make sure is thawed out, etc. and ready to get started making when we get home.
ReplyDeleteYou also said, "problem is I don't know how to cook healthy"... if I may be blunt, then you need to learn. My guess is you already know some healthy food tyoes that you do like, but just don't know how to make them into easy recipes you'd enjoy. Do you like chicken? Seafoods? What Veggies? What types of rice, legumes, etc... start by identifying the healthy foods you already know you like and then go find 20 or 30-minute recipes. Not the other way around. Tons of places you can look online for easy to fix recipes.
Great post Vinny. I struggle with this too and honestly don't know how to really cook healthy either. One website that has sort of helped me out (and is a favourite of my mom's) is http://www.recipezaar.com. I've found a few simple recipes that I like and that I stick to.
ReplyDeleteSticking to only a few recipes for now so change is not overwhelming is going to be key for me. I'm not an adventurous person when it comes to food, which can actually work in my favour when it's healthy recipes I am using.
@ Patrick Thanks for the comment, and don't worry, you can always be blunt with me. I'ma big boy, I can handle it :p. I really do have to get into the habit of planning out my foods. Starting this sunday I am going to plan out the week. Hope it works for me.
ReplyDelete@Emily - Thanks Emily, It IS really hard to just start eating healthy. I use recipezaar.com a bunch too as well as allrecipes.com. Problem is, while I am not a picky eater, my girlfriend is and I have to fins something that we both would eat....not so easy do far. I am trying not to change to drastically but I do know I need to really work on portion size and still not feel the need to eat after dinner. I am drinking more water and that helps a bit too. Good luck to you and thanks again for stopping by.
I use the following mantra often on this journey:
ReplyDelete"My stomach doesn't care what I put in it. It just wants to do it's job and digest. My brain is what needs the retraining and I'm starting by eating (insert food item) instead of (insert food item)"
I've said it countless times and I'm sure I'll say it countless more. It's all about the retraining. Think about when you first started going to the gym. It was hard, you couldn't hardly do anything without getting out of breath. The body wasn't trained...
Now you go 5 days a week (you are going 5 days right????), you can go longer, stronger and really get the body moving.
The food portion of this journey is much the same. Train, train and then train some more.
Tara, You are right, and YES I still go 5 days a week :). The brain does need training too, but for me that seems to be the hardest to train. The brain is VERY powerful when it comes to turning down some foods lol. I may be winning though...3 lbs lost this past week!
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