Make Health Part of Your Lifestyle
You’ll want to think about your new healthy eating habits as a lifestyle change. The diets from the ‘70s and ‘80s aren’t going to cut it. These traditional diets are something you “go on” to lose weight and then “come off” when you’re sick of the deprivation.

These kinds of diets cause more harm than good considering that weight issues are often a product of malnutrition. Instead, we need to embrace sustainable healthy eating habits. Eating healthy should never leave you hungry! Here are some ways to do this:

Find new favorite recipes that use only healthy ingredients (and remember that healthy fats are important and not to be avoided!).
Make treats at home with healthy ingredients (think ice cream, cheesecake, and cookies). Real food meals are so much better than packaged or even take-out meals.
Create a routine that includes time for preparing and eating healthy meals as well as plenty of time outside, movement, and stress reduction.
Making healthy habits a normal part of your life can help you to both be healthy and enjoy life more (no restrictions!). I eat about 95% healthy foods, and I can honestly say I never feel deprived.

Eat Real Food
One way to make health part of your lifestyle is to make healthy food a priority. One of the most important aspects of sticking to a diet is what kind of food you’re eating. Nutrient-poor foods like packaged convenience foods are going to contribute to leptin resistance and insulin resistance and won’t help you lose weight.

On the other hand, real foods can help support the body and improve any imbalances that may be causing weight issues. It’s important to focus on:

Healthy protein – Pastured chicken, grass-fed beef and lamb, and wild-caught fish are what we’re looking for.
Healthy fats – These include avocado, real olive oil, coconut oil, pastured butter or other fats from healthy animals, and fatty fish.
Lots of veggies – Ideally we’ll consume only pesticide-free, organic veggies but the important thing is to simply eat lots of them!
Healthy sweeteners – Instead of sugar, sweeten foods with fruit, maple syrup, raw honey, or other natural sweeteners. It’s also important not to rely too heavily on sweet foods. We usually stick with fruit and use sweeteners for occasional treats.
Healthy Carbohydrates – Fruit and other sweeteners are carbohydrates, but it’s important to also get plenty of other forms of carbohydrates. My favorites are winter squash and sweet potatoes. For some people, going low carb will help with weight, but that’s a higher level goal to focus on after switching to real food.
Just making the switch to real food may be all you need to get your body back on track. In any case, it’s a great first step and can have a huge positive impact on the body. Check out my best tips for stocking a real food kitchen.

Make Positive Goals Instead of Negative Ones
Often the thinking about staying on a healthy diet is to simply stop unhealthy habits. But if it were that simple, no one would struggle with weight. The problem is, stopping doing something takes willpower.

In ideal conditions, willpower is plentiful. We can make good decisions based on a big picture view when we’re calm and cared for. But while under stress, the fight, flight, or freeze instinct kicks in. According to an article on Stanford.edu, when we’re operating on instinct, we make decisions based on short-term benefits and do not focus on long-term benefits.

This makes sense, too. In a hunter-gatherer society, acting short-term when there is a threat would make much more sense than looking long-term. If there was a wolf at the cave door, for example, you’d want to flee to save your life (short-term thinking) rather than stay because you don’t want to have to find a new cave or sleep outside (long-term thinking).

This explains why so many of us eat junk food when we’re underslept, hungry, or stressed in other ways!

As my friend Anne Bogle of Modern Mrs. Darcy says, “You can’t just drop a bad habit: you have to replace it with a good one. If you want to succeed, you have to make a plan.”

So, instead of relying on willpower to “stop” eating junk food, it’s more beneficial to make positive goals such as:

Adding vegetables to your breakfast every day
Cooking with only healthy fats
Making all of your treats at home with real food ingredients (but not setting a limit on them yet)
This way, you’re actively doing something instead of trying not to do something else.

Set Yourself Up for Success
In addition to making positive goals instead of negative ones, it’s also important to set yourself up for success. If you make a healthy eating goal but don’t make changes in your life, it will be hard to stick with it. If there is candy and other unhealthy foods in the house, you’ll have to rely on willpower again. And if you work late and don’t have a plan for dinner, it will be really hard not to grab take-out.

Instead, prepare for your new healthy eating lifestyle