The Easy (and Effective) Way to Improve Your Eating – Even if You’ve Already Fallen Off Your New Years Resolutions

If you’re like many people, you launched into 2015 with a vision of an amazing new you – fit, clean eater, daily meditator. But then the daily reality of life happens. We’re only 9 days into the year and perhaps you’ve already fallen off your lofty goals. If so, you’re not alone.

Big lifestyle overhauls make great headlines (and entertaining reality TV). But they don’t work for most of us to make long-term change.

The secret to being successful at making healthy eating a reality for you (and your family too) is making small, continuous changes.

Small, continuous changes that accumulate into a truly lasting healthy lifestyle.

As the saying goes:

 “Slow and steady wins the race.”   - Aesop

By taking things one step at a time, you create the opportunity to practice each step until it becomes habit. And, once something’s habit, it’s easy. In addition, you build momentum to carry you onwards to more successful change.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Bring out your calendar, daytimer, planner, whatever you use.  Write your big goal on each week. Yes, write it again and again. Even if you’re using an electronic calendar, I recommend typing it in each week instead of using a copy & paste mode. The act of repeating it helps solidify it in your mind.
2. Break your big goal into small, weekly steps that will take you towards achieving your goal. Write down what 1 step you’ll take each week, from now until the last week of December.
3. Take action!

For example, say your big goal is to stop eating fast food (currently you eat it every weekday for lunch). Here’s how to break it down into weekly steps:

• Week 1: Sign up for Green Earth Organics’ weekly bin (because you’ve got to have healthy foods on-hand to substitute for all that fast food)
• Week 2: Pack 1 piece of fruit for lunch each weekday. Eat this along with your fast food lunch.
• Week 3: Pack 1 piece of fruit and one serving of veggies. Eat these instead of making your fast food lunch a “combo”.
• Week 4: Buy a container so that you can start to pack your lunch – fun, functional, cheap, luxurious – there’s no shortage of options. Pick one that is totally “you”. 
• Week 5: Cook one large recipe on the weekend (lunch or dinner). Store one serving of the leftovers in the fridge. Bring it for lunch on Monday. 
• Week 6: Cook dinner one weeknight. Make enough that you save one serving of the leftovers in the fridge. Bring it for lunch the next day.

You can see how each of these steps is small enough that it’s do-able. Yet, combined together, they really add up.