How Do You Actually Change Your Eating Habits?
Lately I've been thinking and writing a lot about fat loss.
This is mostly because I have a number of clients for whom fat loss is the main reason they hire me.
It can be a tough, intractable problem that's hard to solve.
So I have been thinking deeply about it and trying my best to give them an edge; a solution; a new framework; some motivation; a kick in the pants; some moral support; some insight about the nature of the issue.
But it is also because I'm marketing my business - thinking out loud about the "pain points" of prospective clients and trying to show how I can help address them.
With that in mind, this post is about how you can change your habits in relation to food.
I'm writing it because eating a healthy diet which supports sound nutrition and a healthy weight is NOT fundamentally a knowledge problem, it's a problem of motivation, habit, skills and instinct.
Much of our food related behaviour is unthinking and habitual. We have our favourite routines and rituals that are set on autopilot. If these are working against our health, they can be difficult to change.
There's often a great deal of momentum behind these rituals. To change them can involve negotiations with two or more people. For example, you want to change your habit of drinking a bottle of wine in front of a movie with your partner on a Friday night, but they say it's their favourite part of the week and it really helps them de-stress.
Below I set out some of the major issues people face in changing these ingrained habits, along with some solutions to solve them.
Issue #1: There's No Plan - And No Budget (Money, Time And/Or Focus)
Conforming your eating and drinking to a healthy pattern is a big challenge and, often, a big change.
Like other challenging projects in life, this one requires an investment of time, money, thought, focus and energy.
This can be tough to hear - especially if you're already time poor (or money poor) - but bear with me.
If your diet is sub-standard, the momentum is already established. The direction of motion is set. It is non-sensical to expect an easy, frictionless change in the path of travel.
To turn a car around, you need to pump the brakes; burn some rubber when you hit the skids; and exert heightened focus while you re-accelerate to head the other way.
And just as you can't be sorting out your kiddos in the back seat when you do a U-turn, you can't expect to keep everything else happening in life when you're trying to change your diet.
Making a major change like this requires intentional action. It takes a plan. Often it requires extra spending. You also need space in your life to execute the plan. You can't do everything at once.
Dwell on these questions to help you make the space you need:
"I need to tell my friends and family I'm going to be less available for a few months. What can I say?"
"I need to go shopping and prepare for the week ahead. How can I carve out time to make sure that happens as a priority?"
"I need the mental bandwidth to approach this problem with a fresh brain. Is that compatible with my other commitments right now? Can I drop some of them? Or is it best to leave these dietary changes to another time?"
"What can I STOP doing, so I can free up space for this stuff?"
"How can I free up some money to spend in this area?"
I love the idea of the *DON'T DO* list. Having a don't do list can help you carve out time, money and focus.
This is where you put things that you want to do; which would be good & useful to do; but you simply don't have the time or mental focus for them right now.
For example: here's some things currently on my DON'T DO LIST:
Train for a marathon
Get heavily involved in politics
Commit my kids to an additional sporting activity
Take videos of my clients (with their consent) and put them on Instagram stories)
You also need to set aside some time to think about these sort of questions when making a plan for your eating & drinking:
What will be a typical week of eating in my household? (Breakfasts, lunches, dinner, work lunches, desserts)
What will be the standard items on our shopping list?
What will be definitely OFF the shopping list?
Who will do the shopping and when?
Who will do the meal preparation, and when?
What's my strategy around alcohol?
What's my strategy around restaurant meals and fast food?
Is my plan realistic? Or am I biting off more than I can chew?
How will I remind myself of this plan and keep it front of mind?
What are the easy, low fuss healthy meals we can eat when we're frantically busy?
What are the healthy options for indulgences? Are these pleasurable enough? Will they actually be fun and satisfying enough?
It is hard to overstate the importance of planning - and of resourcing your plans with time, money and focus.
In my opinion, this is given far too little attention.
It's worth delaying the start of an major change until you've had a reasonable opportunity to sit down, make a plan, and set your intention to following it.
Issue #2: There's No Review Mechanism Or Accountability
The hard thing about a plan is not making it.
It's actually following the thing.
The keys to following a plan are review and accountability.
By review, I mean: regular opportunities to reflect on your plan. Are you on track? What have been the wins? Where are you struggling? Is the goal still relevant?
Here's some practical suggestions for what you can do to ensure you review the plan:
1 - Incorporate it into your calendar or system of reminders
2 - Listen to podcasts in relation to your goal area when you drive (for the sake of motivation and inspiration)
3 - Read books on the topic (again - to motivate and inspire you)
3 - Put up some physical reminders of the plan (like an A3 meal plan on the fridge door or in your pantry)
4 - Make a regular time to sit down alone in a café and answer a series of questions on pen and paper (e.g. What's working? What's not working?)
If review keeps you focussed, accountability keeps you on your toes.
You may have heard of the Hawthorn effect: people alter their behaviour when they think they are being observed.
If you know you'll need to give an account to someone who'll ask you how you're going, you're more likely to follow through on your commitments.
Having someone to help you with your behaviour change does not need to be intimidating or judgemental, it can be as simple as a regular, friendly question.
Here's some ways you can access some accountability to stay on track, from most to least robust:
Hire a Dietitian / Nutritionist / Health Coach / Personal Trainer and organise regular check ins about diet
Join an in-person support group
Join an online support group
Make a time to meet with a friend once per month to check in on how you're going
(NB: With the last option - accountability via a friend - be aware that this sort of method can easily come unstuck. You or your friend can let it slide, or it can change the dynamic of the friendship in a negative way)
Issue #3: Logistics
Sometimes, eating healthy is positively pesky.
It is much, much easier to reach for the cheap, convenient, non-nutritious-and-bloody-delicious option than to slog away at the healthy choice.
When you're scrambling to get to work on time, you can't drop everything to scramble eggs and wilt spinach.
I suggest you write down the most probable problematic situations FOR YOU, and then strategize what you'll do when it happens (and it WILL happen):
Here's some examples for me:
SITUATION 1: I'm rushing to get out the door early in the morning and I've run out of my usual breakfast ingredients.
ACTION 1: Eat whatever fruit I can grab OR have two slices of bread with peanut butter OR mix up some protein powder, milk and a squirt of honey (which are reasonably easy to keep stocked)
SITUATION 2: I'm going to be out longer than normal and won't be home for lunch (which is my usual routine)
ACTION 2: I know that Northbridge IGA has some healthy, filling lunches which I like, so I'll pop in there on my way to meeting someone at 1pm
SITUATION 3: I finish work at the gym at 12pm on Saturday, and my hockey match starts at 3pm. I don't have time to go home to get something, I don't want to feel full for the game, but if I don't eat beforehand I'll devour everything in sight this evening. I need a bespoke snacking solution that fits these specifications!
ACTION 3: I like those My Muscle Chef protein muffins. They're reasonable healthy. They're filling but not too filling. I'll grab one from the servo after work.
SITUATION 4: I don't actually need to eat but want a sweet snack
ACTION 4: I'll eat an apple. They are very sweet, high in fibre and nutrition. They have relatively few calories and I find them satisfying.
Issue #4: There's A Psychological Issue
Certain psychological issues can lead to overeating. It can be a massive challenge to overcoming deeply troublesome patterns of thinking and behaviour which cause overconsumption.
Now, I'm not a biological determinist (the view that we have no free will or agency), nor do I think we are simply slaves to these psychological conditions with no say in the matter.
(As an aside - I think in our current contemporary culture, we suffer from an excess of self-compassion and could do with a renewed focus on effort, striving, hard work and self-improvement. Sometimes we are put in a bad place by others; other times it's ALL our own fault. Mostly it's a messy mixture).
That being said, people really do suffer from severe loss of control (LOC) in relation to food. Those of us who do NOT experience poor self-control in relation to food would do well to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who does. I have trouble controlling intrusive thoughts about financial security. If that morphed into difficulty controlling my eating behaviour, I would find it a big, big challenge to keep it in check.
Also, it is totally understandable that food can be used to soothe the emotional pain inherent in life. After all, it is one of the more intense pleasures we have access to.
It is understandable that we use food to console ourselves, but can be very harmful. So, if you find yourself battling against persistent loss of control in relation to food, or you feel a lot of negative emotions in connection to your weight, I suggest you enlist help from a Psychologist who is experienced in this area.
There are specialist Psychologists you can turn to - like the ones at Body Matters: https://bodymatters.com.au/
From what I can see, there's different ways of conceptualising this problem and different approaches that flow from these concepts.
Some stress the role of your past experience as causative of disordered eating; others apply a different lens.
In these situations, I like to advise people to try on the different frameworks to see if they work for you. Don't become overly concerned as to whether a particular framework is strictly correct (in terms of its scientific claims). All scientific knowledge is provisional, after all.
And if a course of action is low risk and there's minimal downsides, it can't hurt to try it on for size. (Further, you can put it to the side if it stops working for you).
Issue #5: There's A Skill Gap: You Don't Know How To Make A Healthy Diet A Thing Of Pleasure
It may be that you're motivated to change your diet to support fat loss, but you don't know how to cook.
Or, you do know how to cook but don't know how to prepare healthy meals.
You may think that "eating healthy" = "eating boring".
If you don't know how to cook at all, here's some principles I suggest you follow to get started:
Start simple: Select recipes which are very basic. If it's too complicated (too many ingredients, too many uncommon ingredients, complicated cooking methods, uncommon or complicated equipment), you're much more likely to quit.
Start with a limited number of recipes: You're establishing the foundation. Make the building solid from the beginning. If you're flitting about with too much experimentation you end up being able to do lots of recipes badly, as opposed to a few recipes well. It is easier to grow outwards from a solid knowledge foundation. You want to have a good number of dishes you can cook on autopilot. This reduces decision fatigue and cuts the mental energy associated with cooking. And that means you're more likely to actually cook.
Start with a limited set of tools: If you're a complete amateur, stick to saucepans and frying pans. (Plus chopping boards and knives). Expand your equipment collection ONLY once you've mastered the fundamentals.
Find a few reliable websites or social media accounts to source recipes and inspiration. Here's a few which look good:
Recipe Tin Eats - especially their section on "healthy but still fabulously tasty https://www.recipetineats.com/
Taste.com - here's the link to their "healthy" collection https://www.taste.com.au/healthy
CSIRO diet quick and easy recipes https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/au/recipes/quick-easy-recipes/
Steph cooks stuff https://www.instagram.com/steph_cooks_stuff/
Here's what you can do to expand your repertoire to include healthier meals:
1// Sit down and ask yourself: what healthy ingredients do I like? Not meals, just ingredients. When you do this, and look at the list, often these can simply be combined together. You do not need to cook a dish - you can just assemble ingredients.
Here's some I like: salmon, white fish, beef mince, chicken (breast or thigh), pumpkin, sweet potato, zucchini, broccoli, brown rice.
If I chucked some of these together - pan fried salmon, brown rice (mixed with some grated zucchini), with baby spinach and some steamed broccoli on the side (drizzled with a touch of Sriracha hot sauce) - I could happily eat that 2-3 night per week.
2// As above, taking inspiration and ideas from a few good websites, books or social media accounts can really help.
3// Invite some friends over for a meal, and tell them you're going to cook up some really healthy food. This sort of positive, self-inflicted social pressure can provide the kick in the pants you may need to take action. Kind of like how inviting people over can spur you on to clean the house properly!!
These things DO require time and energy, and the first thing you may need to do is free some of that up for yourself - see point 1 above.
Issue #6: There's Social Pressure Working Against Positive Change
In Australia, we have a bad habit of tearing people down who are trying to achieve something big. This is colloquially referred to as "tall poppy syndrome". It is different in American culture - for example - where the culture values self-improvement more highly and tends to praise people striving towards an ambition. (And, yes, of course, there are issues in American culture too, but we Australians are a pretty cynical bunch).
Be aware that if you're trying to make some positive change, embarking on an audacious project, where you seeking self-improvement, or to be different to your friends and family (or just a different version of yourself), you may attract negative attention and criticism.
We valorise "coolness" and indifference in Australian culture (or even just the easy-going, carefree life - long weekends, beers, BBQs & jet skis). And if you're seen to be overly enthusiastic for developing yourself, others may find it off-putting.
People see you as just like them, but then they hear you express dissatisfaction with the status quo, and a desire for change, and they take it as personal criticism. "You're just like me, and you don't like who you are - so you think there's something wrong with me."
Often, sadly, this reflects the insecurity of that person, and not any defect in yourself or what you're striving for.
Just being aware of this dynamic may be all you need to withstand any social pressure against the changes you're seeking to make.
But, if it’s not enough, it can be very helpful to try to surround yourself with a positive network. Easier said than done, but it certainly works if you can pull it off. Fortunately, in a health and fitness context (gyms, sporting clubs etc) you're very likely to find people on a similar journey to you.
This is a great reason to;
Join a gym (as in, committing to group fitness where you’ll meet people - not just accessing equipment)
Join a sporting team
Get involved at a Parkrun
Become a regular attender at a community running group
Best of luck changing your dietary habits for your health and happiness!