Sticking to a healthy diet often seems to be an exercise in masochism as you're forced to forego all the things you'd rather be eating in favor of bland steamed chicken, broccoli and brown rice. Eating healthy foods is crucial though, not only for weight loss and your appearance generally but also for our overall good health.
Wouldn't it be useful then if we could just learn to love the healthy stuff? Well the good news is that it's actually completely possible. Here's how you can do it.
Read more ¿Qué más?: 3 Steps to get back on track after eating too much
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): This term describes the process of identifying negative thoughts and then replacing them with positive ones. This can be used to treat phobias of heights for instance by getting patients to recognize themselves thinking things like, "I'm going to fall" and to replace these with positive affirmations like, "I'm completely in control."
What does all this have to do with dieting? Simple: By doing a bit more reading on CBT and learning the basic processes, you can then change the way you think about "healthy food" and "treats." Stop thinking of certain things as healthy and other things as tasty and instead judge everything on its own merits.
Likewise, learn to focus on the negative aspects of your deserts instead of the positives. Next time you're thinking of having another bite of cake when you're full, remember how it felt last time you stuffed yourself with pudding. Not so good, right? Hold on to that and instead have a nice refreshing apple.
2. Find healthy foods you love: If you can find the right healthy foods, then they can actually be just as tasty as those guilty treats. Sometimes this is just a matter of doing the research–you might not find the fruit that you love right away but if you keep looking you'll get there.
Alternatively it might be finding the right seasoning. A little salt and pepper never hurt anyone, but also adding fresh herbs to your foods can help you boost up the flavor and make your foods much more delicious. Another tip is to try mixing up your flavors. Mixing sweet and savory in the same bowl can make things very appetizing (which may be a result of our evolutionary heritage), so try making up a bowl of raisins or cranberries and nuts and divide it into snack size portions for your week. It's great way to prevent cravings healthily and as you now know organization is key when trying to lose weight.
3. Take the sugar out of your tea: It's well know by most of us that you can develop a "sweet tooth" if you keep having sweet things. Drinking sugary tea every day for instance is a prime example and is sure to leave you wanting regular sugar kicks. Take the sugar out of your tea then and not only will that have immediate obvious health benefits but it will also help you to combat your need for sweet. At first it will taste bland but over time you'll reach the point where the thought of putting sugar in your tea is quite unpleasant even!
Remember to share this information with all the people that you love, so that they can also learn to love healthy foods. Together we can make this world a happier healthier world!
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