Designing a Healthy Personalized Eating Plan
How many times have you tried to follow a healthy eating plan and failed to stick to it? You may think it’s mainly due to a lack of motivation. However, you may not be aware how your diet impacts your overall health.
You can adopt a diet to accomplish anything you want: lose weight, increase energy levels, improve external appearance, prevent discomfort and health problems, etc. People are always interested in a healthier diet, regardless of their reasons.
Keep in mind that a healthy diet and a personalized eating plan are different things.
The main problem is that people believe that they can’t follow a diet due to their lack of willpower or discipline. However, the real problem for not fulfilling that commitment may simply be that what you’ve set out to do is too difficult.
The plan may be ideal but its demands may not be right for you. Thus, you must find one that works for you, one that you can integrate as a habit and doesn’t require so much effort.
Any healthy eating plan to change your appearance or overall health must be well thought out in order to work, and you must be able to follow it without giving in. As you can see, the progress you make will be your best reinforcer.
This is because any eating plan that leads to short-lived results will only frustrate you and make you want to quit.
“True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary.”
-Charles Eisenstein-
What’s healthy eating?
The first step to finding your optimal personalized eating plan is to understand what the term “healthy” actually means. For starters, it isn’t just about eating to lose weight or to improve your health but a global concept: your wellness. Healthy eating means feeling good about your body and what you eat and having a good relationship with food.
A healthy diet will leave you satisfied and energized throughout your daily tasks and activities. Thus, it may be time to analyze the structure of your diet if you’re lacking energy throughout the day.
For one, you won’t have as many cravings when you eat right because your body will have all the nutrients it needs to function properly.
Your relationship with food
Furthermore, eating properly implies having a healthy relationship with food, one in which there’s no guilt. As you can see, your relationship with food should be healthy and one of love. Animals eat mostly for energy, but also to feel good. In fact, it goes beyond enjoying the flavors.
Therefore, eating is an easy and natural process that fulfills a function. You don’t have to be at war with yourself when it comes to it. You don’t have to repress yourself and avoid eating certain things when you pay enough attention to the quality of your diet.
Although you may not be aware of it, repression goes against your desires, leading you to end up eating foods that aren’t good for you.
People who have a healthy relationship with food often talk about healthy eating in a completely different way than those who force themselves to adhere to restrictive diets. The former don’t obsess about the scale, portions, or calories. Neither do they feel guilty about eating one food or another.
Principles of a healthy eating plan
There are three key principles to making a healthy diet work. They are:
- Balance your physical and mental health. Prioritize mental happiness over physical happiness so you don’t feel anxious or guilty about what you eat or don’t eat. This is the best way to develop a healthier emotional connection to food.
- Find a long-term sustainable plan. You need to find a plan you can incorporate into your daily life; one that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require a huge sacrifice; one that doesn’t make you feel like you’re dieting. The key is to make it simple enough to fit into your daily life.
- Minimize deprivation. Many healthy eating plans fail because they’re restrictive. This isn’t a loving act, as it involves denying yourself the foods you really enjoy. It’s best to simply prioritize healthy foods by simply selecting good alternatives.
In short, eating healthy doesn’t have to be difficult. It isn’t about eating the latest superfoods or basing your diet on food supplements that supposedly will help you meet your dietary needs.
Start by implementing easy changes. You don’t have to do it all at once. Take things one step at a time and enjoy the reinforcement of improving your overall well-being.
Now you know that the basics of healthy living and healthy eating are actually simpler than they seem.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Bender, D. A. (1995). Introducción a la nutrición y al metabolismo. Zaragoza: Ed. Acribia.
- Cervera, P., Clapés, J. y Rigolfas, R. (2004). Alimentación y dietoterapia (4ª ed). Madrid: Ed. McGraw-Hill Interamericana.