This month, we will focus on Step One, Decide, and consider the five basic decisions you can make to help you fully commit to your diet makeover:
1. Decide to Change Your Behavior. This step simply asks you to become conscious rather than mindless about the food you choose to eat. Changing your behavior is nothing more than slowing down long enough to ask yourself one simple question before you put something in your mouth or on your family’s table: Will this food make my family and me healthier, stronger people? If the answer to that question is yes, great, serve it up. If the answer to that question is no, CHOOSE NOT TO EAT IT. We all have the power to make this choice.
2. Decide Healthy Eating is a Top Priority in Your Life. For one month, try putting “Eat Better” at the top of your daily “To Do” list or just write the phrase “Eat Better” each day on a piece of paper and display it prominently on your fridge. The simple act of writing “Eat Better” at the beginning of each day allows us to begin the day with a mindful and conscious decision to make whole food nutrition a top priority.
3. Decide That You Have Time to Change the Way You Eat. You do have time. Let me be absolutely clear: You Do Have Time. Eating whole foods will save you time at the grocery store, save you time in meal preparation and save you “life” time. Your grocery shopping time is cut because your list is much easier: fruit, vegetables, whole grains, meat, dairy and good fats. You stay on the perimeter of the store with minimal need to walk through the aisles and there are no complicated food labels to read. You will save food preparation time because your recipes use fewer ingredients and your side dishes are fresh vegetables and fruit. It takes less time to wash, core and cut an apple than it does to make a box of macaroni and cheese…even if you microwave it! And, our family saved in “life” time because better nutrition meant less need for sensory processing therapies and fewer illness—so fewer trips to the doctor. My suggestion to those who still say they don’t have enough time is this: It’s not that you don’t have time; it’s that you haven’t moved “Eat Better” to the top of your priority list. Solution? Go directly back to Decision No. 2, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
4. Decide That You Can Afford a Diet Based in Whole Foods. The hard truth is this: in the long run, it is much more expensive NOT to change the way we eat. The standard American diet is literally killing us. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes are all on the rise and are occurring at younger and younger ages. The recommended method of prevention? Eat more fruits and vegetables. Ultimately, health care is more expensive than whole foods. Diet changes in our family resulted in the elimination of sensory processing therapies and brought a significant decrease in illnesses and corresponding trips to the doctor. Not only did this save us time, it saved us money. The benefits of whole food nutrition are worth the sacrifice and will eventually pay substantial dividends.
5. Decide it is Easy to Change the Way You Eat. If you walk around telling yourself it is too hard to make a diet change, it will be. If you simply decide that it will be easy to make the change, it will be. And this is why: eating whole foods will simplify rather than complicate your life. Keep it simple. Learn a few simple recipes (trust me, anyone can roast a chicken) and repeat them regularly until you are up for learning some new ones. For snacks, go natural. The easiest snacks in the world are those nature made. Trust your instincts, set some goals and easily move yourself forward, one small morsel at a time.
Making these decisions can require you to leave your comfort zone. Eating healthier can put you on the fringes of mainstream society and make you and your kids feel different from other people. Fully committing to each of these five decisions will make it easier for you to swim upstream. You may be amazed at how quickly you become a leader rather than a follower as your example positively influences other families to change. And, here is your summer on-the-go tip from Just Get Going: when you fully commit to these five decisions, you will find yourself choosing, whenever possible, to plan ahead and pack healthy, whole food to bring with you.
If you want a more in depth look at the six Getting Started steps, please join our M3 Membership Group. M3 members have access to the complete set of six Getting Started series e-books. In addition, M3 members will be exploring these six steps in more detail during our monthly group meeting conference calls from July through December. As a special bonus for my e-Tips and e-Newsletter subscribers, my e-Book Decide and a recording of the July M3 Membership group meeting are available for FREE at http://www.mightymorsels.com/conference_call_download.htm.
Join us next month when Just Get Goings explores Step Two of the Getting Started series: Plan.
Rebecca Bishop is the creator of MightyMorsels.com. She is a wife, a mother, and a lawyer. She is a frequent speaker and presenter on the benefits of whole food nutrition for children, particularly those with sensory processing disorders and other special needs. She is working toward a holistic nutrition degree and is devoted to helping people introduce whole food nutrition into their lives because she has seen first-hand the benefits of whole food nutrition in her own family.