Creating New Habits with Upstream Wellness

Building Sustainable Healthy Habits

Tips and Tricks

How many times have you been determined to change your habits around your diet or lifestyle, started off strong only to fall off the wagon within the month? Too many to count, right? Maybe you swore off ice cream on New Year's Day or promised yourself you would get up and exercise every morning, but it didn’t happen. Welp, guess what, you are just like the rest of us.

Making changes that last is a challenge. This is, in part, because we led busy lives and are constantly bombarded by marketing for products and opportunities that derail our health. But it’s also because we live fluid dynamic lives and have brains that seek comfort and routine to keep us safe. This article is intended to offer a few strategies to help us achieve our health goals one choice at a time.

First, shift your perspective! It happens, we fall off the health wagon. Dwelling on it gets us nowhere. Forgive yourself and let’s start building in habits so that most of the time you make healthy choices.

Start meal planning. This takes the work out of making food choices daily. Treat meal planning the same way you do any other weekly activity.

o Start by making a list of 3-5 meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that you enjoy and have time to make.

o Include at least one meal that you can double the recipe to have leftovers, one meal that you can freeze for later and one meal that you can make in less than 30 minutes.

o Then make the grocery list for items that you will need to prepare these meals. These steps reduce the spontaneous purchases that most likely are not the healthiest choices.

Build every meal (especially breakfast) with protein, fat, and fiber. Good options include smoothies, soups, stir-fries, and salads.

Meal prepping. Just like you make time every week for your favorite show, schedule (yes, on your calendar) an hour or two for meal prepping. Use this time to prepare vegetables, make sauces, dressings, freezable meals, and cooked foods for the week. This doesn’t have to be drudgery. Put on your favorite music, podcast, or invite a friend to join. If you have kids, you can have them join you to start to learn healthy kitchen skills.

If you are intermittent fasting in the morning but wind up eating uncontrollably in the evening, consider shifting your eating window to earlier, balancing your meals (protein, fat and fiber) throughout the day or shortening the fasting period. If our body perceives starvation, we lose control when food is present. These tend not to be the foods we want to overeat.

Optimize sleep. When you don’t sleep enough, your body amps up your cravings for calories, making it difficult to resist comfort foods.

Check in with yourself. Next time you find yourself in the midst of making a choice you feel is not healthy, pause, take a deep breath, and check in with what your body is experiencing. Are you stressed? Tired? Bored? Lonely? Frustrated? Sometimes, our brains are looking to satisfy a feeling and our bodies lead us to unhealthy habits (high sugar/starch foods, excessive screentime, etc.) for a short-term fix. Identifying the feeling that leads you towards unhealthy choices is the first step in understanding your personal trigger. Once you identify the feeling that’s driving you to unhealthy choices, deal with it. Maybe you need a nap, to have a difficult conversation with someone, or to find a hobby.

Change your routine and remove the obstacles. For some of us, making an unhealthy choice is driven by habits. For example, do you associate grabbing a handful of [fill in the blank] every time you walk by the cupboard (and we aren’t talking broccoli here)? Or eating [again, fill in the blank] in front of the TV after dinner? Remove the obstacle to change the habit. By this I mean don’t have the foods that harm your body in the cupboard or choose not to watch TV after dinner (a short walk with your favorite music or podcast is an excellent alternative). This will be uncomfortable in the beginning but over time, your brain will start to recognize the new routine as habit.

Stack existing routines with healthy habits. For example, pair brushing your teeth with a set of squats, or brewing coffee with a downward dog.

Find a healthy way to reward yourself. This culture has taught us that we reward ourselves with foods that are not in the best interest of our body. Eating is not an ideal pastime for our health. While these behaviors are occasionally acceptable, on a regular basis we need to find other ways to treat ourselves. Consider a massage or trip to your favorite beach or park.

Mindfully indulge. Accept that sometimes, its okay to indulge. The goal is not perfection, the goal is most of the time to make healthy choices. Remember expectations for yourself needs to be flexible enough to handle what life throws at you. With that, plan for when you are going to mindfully indulge. For example, if you plan on going out with friends to celebrate (because, let’s face it, we love to celebrate everything) and you know that your favorite dessert is going to be at the restaurant, make sure you have a small meal before you go that has protein, fat, and fiber (or look for this on the menu in advance, split the dessert with a friend, and enjoy every bite.

Use these tips and tricks to build in sustainable healthy habits so that when you fall off the health wagon, you know how to course correct. Contact Upstream Wellness at www.UpstreamWellness.net to get a personalized health plan for a healthier future.

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