Many times, you don’t actually need a nutritionist to tell you what foods would make you feel better. You already know. Changing your self-sabotaging eating habits is actually way harder than knowing what changes to make*.
You’ve probably read about habits: actions that you make over and over and eventually do without thinking. Your brain puts actions on autopilot so, for example, you don’t have to think about buckling your seatbelt every time you get in your car. Good deal, right?! Your brain helps you make a lifesaving choice without any effort on your part! 👏
You also know that some of your food habits are making you feel tired, anxious, and sick. Once we get into unhelpful habits around food, it isn’t easy to change those habits. Justin Whitmel Earley says,
Picture a wagon wheel in a rut. It takes no effort at all to stay in the rut. But it takes incredible effort to pull the wheel out of it.1
You are going to have to put in a real effort at first to get your food habits out of the rut and on the road. For the first fortnight (iykyk) your new habit will feel like pulling teeth, until it becomes automatic and the healthy choice becomes the easy choice.
Here’s some examples of nutrition-related habits from my real life, right now:
| I want to stop drinking coffee after noon, because it keeps me from falling asleep at night. | |
| Old habit: I feel sleepy after lunch. I think “just one more cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt.” I drink it and then stay up too late, and (shock!) I am sleepy again the next day. | New habit: I feel sleepy after lunch. I choose to press play on a 10-min Pilates workout on my computer even though it is actually the last thing I want to do. And (shock!) I feel energized after moving my body! |
| I want to eat less sugar before bed. | |
| Old habit: I avoid sugar most of the day but by evening I lose all self-control and pull out the ice cream. | New habit: I make a nightly habit of pulling out some frozen berries and pouring cream on top of them. Still totally decadent but without the sugar spike! |
| I want to eat real adult meals even though I stay home with kids who love chicken nuggets and mac + cheese. | |
| Old habit: Grabbing whatever is convenient, whenever I feel hungry (packaged bars, crackers, chips). Or, obvi, eating the nuggets with the kids. | New habit: Start making overnight oats for breakfast the night before. Choose to prep a huge batch of “adult food” (soup, filling salad toppings, boiled eggs) on the weekend for the week’s lunches. |
Remember, you need to put in extra effort for a few weeks for the change to become habitual. And don’t expect the habit to stick perfectly forever. Life is always throwing curveballs, and travel, sickness, or just tough circumstances might ruin your routine for a time. When this happens, choose to have zero mental drama about it. Focus on affirming thoughts: I can restart meal prep once I get over this cold. I have formed new habits before and I will be able to again. Eating sugar does not make me a slob or a less valuable human. When you have capacity again, give yourself a few weeks to get back into those helpful routines.
Choosing another afternoon cup of coffee will almost always seem more appealing than moving my body, but once I make that change for a few weeks, the choice will be a little easier than it was at first and easier to go back to if you fall out of the routine.
What habits around food do you want to change?
*Ok, so, sometimes you change your food habits and you still feel terrible. In those cases, talk to a nutritionist or dietitian to see what you might be missing.
1Justin Whitmel Earley, Habits of the Household (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021). His book was also the inspiration for the habit chart.