Healthy Lifestyle Habits For Better Eating

Developing healthy lifestyle habits for better eating doesn’t have to be a challenge. With each new habit we adopt, we help to set ourselves up for successful eating.

When I was younger I definitely could have made better choices when it came to a healthy lifestyle. I ate out frequently and didn’t put much emphasis on regular exercise. However, once I became a mom that all started to change. Mainly because I wanted better for my kids.

I slowly started making changes. It started with making better food choices and evolved to better habits. Over the years I have learned that healthy lifestyle habits are not only good for me but they make me feel great too!

Although I don’t make healthy choices all of the time and I will always consider myself a work in progress, I do try to make good choices most of the time.

One of the things that I have learned over the years is that adopting healthy lifestyle habits is extremely important when it comes to eating well. For me, when I am practicing healthy lifestyle habits I tend to feel better overall which makes it so much easier to make better food choices.

It’s when we are tired, stressed, and overwhelmed that we are more likely to go through a drive-thru or pick up a bag of chips. On the flip side, when we are well rested, organized, hydrated, stress free, etc., it is much easier to make those healthy choices to eat better.

I am not anyone qualified to give any medical or nutritional advice. I’m just a mom trying to be my best self everyday so I can be a better mom to my kids. I know that healthy lifestyle habits help me eat better because I feel better.

So if you are trying to eat better this year, check out these healthy lifestyle habits. I hope some of them can help you eat better too!

Daily Exercise Routine

Adopting a daily exercise routine as a healthy lifestyle habit is tremendously beneficial. Not only can it make you feel better and give you more energy, but it can also have a big impact on what you eat. When you are moving in some way on a daily basis, it tends to make you feel good and will typically make you want to eat good too. It’s counterintuitive to spend 45 minutes doing yoga then stopping at the drive-thru on the way home.

So why not make movement a necessary part of everyday? It doesn’t have to be a hard workout. A nice long walk or peaceful yoga session is great too. Try making movement a nonnegotiable in your life. When movement is nonnegotiable, it means you don’t have a choice if you want to work out or go walking. It means you have made it a requirement in your life that has to be done.

This strategy has worked so well for me. For years I would be very sporadic with movement. I would workout regularly for a few months and then do nothing for months at a time. Through those years I knew that when I chose to move in some way, I felt better. So I decided to stop giving myself the option to take a day off. Instead I made it a requirement that I had to move daily for a minimum of 15-20 minutes. I figured that was enough time to squeeze movement in on busy days. However, on most days I spent 30-45 minutes doing some type of movement activity. Some days it may be more strenuous workouts, some days may be yoga, and other days may be a walk.

By choosing to not make movement an option, it became more enjoyable. It was now something I HAD to do. So I made sure I did activities I enjoyed and now I look forward to that part of my day.

Sleep

Getting enough sleep is one of those healthy lifestyle habits that a lot of people don’t put enough emphasis on. However the difference between days when we are well rested and days when we are clearly lacking in sleep tend to have different results.

When we are well rested, we may be in a better mood, make better eating choices, be more productive, and handle stressful events better. When we aren’t well rested, it can have the opposite effect.

By paying attention to our bodies and having a good understanding of how much sleep our bodies need every night, it’s easier to plan our days and sleep too. It allows us to create a sleep schedule that will help us be our best selves. By sticking to a sleep schedule, it helps us to set each day up for success too.

Reduce Stress

Stress is a huge trigger for unhealthy eating habits. It can elevate our cortisol levels which can lead to overeating and unhealthy eating.

Rather than giving yourself a hard time for eating poorly the next time you are stressed, try reducing your overall stress in your day to day life. By focusing on reducing stress overall, it not only improves your overall quality of life, but it also decreases those times when unhealthy eating is the result of a stressful life.

Find A Passion

As a mom, I know how easy it is to put all of your focus on your kids and family. Yes, being a mom is one of the most important jobs we will ever have. However, having a purpose everyday outside of our kids and our family is important too. Whether it is a goal you are working towards, a hobby you love, a place where you love volunteering, or a business you want to build, having a passion to get excited about everyday gives you purpose outside of your role as mom or wife.

Without a passion to be excited about, it’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of everyday mom life. When we are constantly on the go with work and home obligations, it can lead to stress, anxiety, and exhaustion when we don’t take care of ourselves.

However when we take the time for a passion that we love, it improves our overall well being. Because it makes us feel good it helps us make better choices when it comes to our health, including better eating habits.

Create A Go To List

In general, I think it is safe to say that most people want to eat well and be healthy. When we struggle, it’s because life gets in the way. It’s easy to find ourselves tired, hungry, and just trying to get our family fed. So rather than hoping for the best, why not set yourself up for success?

One way to do that is to have an easily accessible resource available with a list of healthy meals that your family loves and that are also easy to make. This can help to eliminate those times when you may not know what to feed your family and you head for the drive-thru instead.

I used to waste so much time searching for recipes online or in my recipe collection. I finally decided to create an organized binder that only had recipes for healthy, easy meals that we love. Now when I need a quick meal or just a reminder on how to make one of our go to meals, I can find the recipe fast. This one trick makes meal time so much easier, which in turn makes it more enjoyable. Since it is more enjoyable, it is much easier to stick to our objective which is to eat whole foods made at home.

Meal Plan

Eating meals at home is not only cheaper than take out, but also much healthier. That’s why making it easier to eat at home can have a big impact on what you eat.

Meal planning doesn’t have to be elaborate or time consuming. By having a prepared resource with all your favorite healthy easy meals handy, meal planning can be done very quickly. It is just another tool to help you stay on track, avoid getting take out, and make healthier choices.

Hydrate

Making a point to drink plenty of water is an easy healthy lifestyle habit to incorporate into your life that can really impact how you feel overall. Often when we feel tired or hungry, it can often be a result of mild dehydration. It can also cause headaches and dizziness as well.

Rather than waiting for signs of dehydration, it’s quite easy to stay hydrated by incorporating a few tricks into your day. Try making it a habit to drink a large glass of water first thing in the morning. Another idea is to make it a habit to drink a full glass of water with each meal. I also like to have set times throughout the day to intentionally drink a full glass of water. This might be during a mid morning break or an afternoon break. It could also be on your way to and from work. Just try and find times throughout the day when you do the same activity around the same time each day. Another great tip is to always carry a reusable water bottle to make regular hydrating easy.

By putting a little thought into staying hydrated, it can help avoid feelings of dehydration with very minimal effort. This results in creating another layer of overall well being. This helps you feel your best which is crucial when it comes to making regular healthy choices at meal times.

Find Ways To Limit Temptations

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good our intentions are. When temptations are around us, sometimes we make food choices that may be unhealthy for us. Rather than making it easy to make these choices, try making it a habit to eliminate temptations.

One way to eliminate temptations is to stock your fridge and pantry with healthy food choices and don’t buy foods you want to avoid. Instead find beautiful fruits, veggies, and whole ingredients that you really enjoy and stock up on those. By creating a healthy environment to live and thrive in, it eliminates temptation at home. Eventually it also eliminates the desire to eat processed sugary foods.

Creating habits for healthy eating at home is easier than when you are outside of your home . The key to developing good eating habits at work or with friends and family is to set up rules or standards for yourself. If there are times in your everyday life where you frequently find yourself eating foods you would rather avoid like at work, at parties, or at dinner with friends, determine how you can change that.

When I first started teaching, I was shocked at the number of treats that were always in the teacher’s lounge. Between treats other teachers would bring in, or leftover pizza, cakes, or cupcakes, from classroom events, there was a lot of food that was not good for me. At first, I thought it was great! However, I quickly realized where all of that indulging was going to lead. So I finally made a rule that I wouldn’t eat any food from the teacher’s lounge unless it was a potluck day or if there were treats from my favorite bakery which I knew only happened on rare occasions. That rule served me well for years because I made it a standard.

Other ideas might include only ordering a certain type of meal when you go out with friends or skipping certain foods at parties.

When it comes down to it, limiting temptations is all about identifying a problem and coming up with simple and creative solutions. When we take steps to do this, we set ourselves up to make better choices.

Give Yourself A Break

Sometimes life happens and despite our best intentions, we get thrown off track. When that happens and you find yourself eating something you would rather avoid, don’t be hard on yourself. Just focus on how eating well makes you feel and make a plan to eat well for your next meal. There’s no benefit in sabotaging the rest of the day or being hard on yourself.

When we have good intentions and make eating well a priority in our lives, it will happen the majority of the time. By incorporating good eating habits into our regular routines, it becomes more natural over time to incorporate healthy ingredients into our day to day and those moments when we make choices we may regret become much less frequent.

Daily Rating

Consistently eating well doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why developing healthy lifestyle habits for better eating is so helpful because every new habit becomes another tool to use towards success. Another great tool to help with eating well is the habit of rating the day. It only takes a few minutes at the end of the day to reflect on how the day was overall. Rating the day can include how you felt overall and what contributed to that. The daily rating could include things like sleep, productivity, movement, relationships, and of course food choices.

By taking just a few minutes to reflect on what worked well and what we can improve tomorrow, it helps us to be aware of how our choices in all areas can impact us. It can also help us set the intention to set up the next day for success.