Junk food can be tempting but if you want to maintain a healthy lifestyle you’ll need to sacrifice those poor diet choices.
We’re all wise enough to know that we shouldn’t eat junk food. We know it’s bad for us, there’s no point in speaking on that point anymore. But ignorance was unlikely ever the reason you ate junk food. We eat food that we know is bad for us because it’s easy and it tastes good. Sometimes when our lives get too hectic, we excuse ourselves from eating healthy, or maybe we just have cravings for some of the greasy, sweet or salty foods.
However you let junk food into your diet, it can be pretty hard to cut out when your indulging gets too much. So if you’re having a tough time ridding junk food from your life, here are some tips to cut it out for good.
Create a meal plan.
You might be disciplined enough to not actively seek out junk food, but the problem comes when you have one of those busy days. You have meetings all day, you’re stuck working late at the office, you have a long commute home, and after all that it’s a lot easier to just go through a drive-thru than to make a decent meal for yourself. But you’re going to have a few busy days in your life and you can’t make that your excuse. Setting up a weekly meal plan of smart food choices will keep you from scrambling for meal ideas when things get crazy. You can even freeze prepared meals or set aside ingredients to make meal time easier. A little pre-planning can help keep things healthy.
Set routine for yourself.
Similar to making a meal plan for yourself, establishing a firm routine can help prevent unnecessary snacking and caving to the lure of take-out. Set strict times for your breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks. If you stick to those times, then you can avoid downtime when the hunger pains have you searching for the quickest and easiest meal. It also stops you from missing lunch and then pigging out on a massive dinner. Structure meals have been shown to not only help avoid over-eating but also keep your metabolism in check.
Break bad eating habits.
A lot of junk food indulging comes down to bad habits. It’s nothing to beat yourself up about as many of us are guilty of it from time to time. But when you succumb to these habits too often then it’s time to break them. It could be something simple like having a bowl of popcorn every time you watch a movie, or making Friday night pizza night. You live with these habits long enough and you start to think you can’t enjoy some of your favourite things without the accompaniment of some unhealthy snacks. Remove the junk food from the equation and you’ll discover that food has little to do with how much fun you can have.
Find healthy substitutes for snack time.
Snacking isn’t an unusual thing. Sometimes we need a little something to get us from one meal to another, but it’s important to be smart about what you choose for your snacks. Not every snack needs to be a bowl of potato chips or a chocolate bar—there are plenty of healthy options. And, yes, they do taste good. For instance, almonds are a great way to help curb your appetite without all the negative things you don’t want. Find the healthy choice that suits you and replace the bad ones.
Stop ‘treating’ yourself.
For some of us, our junk food obsession can be categorized as an addiction. As much as we know we shouldn’t, we can’t help ourselves. When faced with this obstacle, it becomes a little harder to kick the habit and you need to actually change your way of thinking. As an example, stop looking at eating junk food as a way of treating yourself. Whether it be after a bad day, after a good day or for any special occasion, you don’t need junk food to celebrate. Just like linking eating junk food with your favourite activities, it’s misguided thinking that reinforces bad habits.
Do some research.
Have you actually looked at what junk food does to your body? We all know that these food options are vaguely bad for us. Give a little more context to those facts by doing a bit of research. There are plenty of reliable studies out there that show to negative effects of junk food. It might seem like a silly method, trying to trick yourself into a healthier lifestyle. But knowledge is a powerful thing and it may just be the thing you need. Once you’re confronted with some truth about what your food indulgences cost you, it can be harder to ignore.