Are you an emotional eater? Do you eat when you get stressed out? Are you always trying to diet or lose weight? If so, read the following suggestions from the owner of Happy Belly Health, Shanti Pappas, on how you can change your relationship with food and dieting so you can feel satisfied and free… enjoying your food and your body more!
Keep a Food Journal:
Developing healthy habits is a daunting task… one that might leave you feeling like you don’t quite know where to start. I’ve found that keeping a food journal is a great way to ease into this process. You may find it helpful to jot down the basics, from what you eat and drink to your sleep and exercise routines. It can certainly be humbling, but journaling can help you bring some mindfulness to your meals and notice any patterns that you may want to change.
Identify and Change your Patterns:
After you gain insight, you can begin identifying your unhealthy habits. For instance, you might notice you eat very little all day and binge at night. I might suggest you create an eating schedule to reset your habits. You could try eating three meals a day while allowing for one optional snack, spacing each meal more than three hours apart, and eating no less than three hours before bed. Creating such a schedule can help you and struggling dieters move away from a restrictive-eating and diet mentality while laying the foundation for a healthy and happy belly.
Breakfast Suggestion:
A healthful breakfast fills you up, gets your brains going, and keeps your blood sugar stable all day long. I personally love a breakfast full of whole eggs with enough healthy fat like avocado, olive oil, and complex carbs like vegetables and/or berries to help me feel satiated. Your breakfast should be nutrient dense and be filling enough to hold you over until lunch.
Planning Ahead:
While willpower is a quickly exhaustible resource, planning ahead for a day of eating is not! It may seem like a lot, but even something as simple as calendaring lunches with enough time to order food and eat it is a good place to start! If you’re a busy professional, I recommend regular meal delivery services so you don’t have to make decisions about food in between meetings. Remember, planning ahead can be the trick to avoiding sticky situations and all those “iffy” decisions made on an empty tummy.
Going too long without eating:
If you’re like most people, you probably go a long time without eating between lunch and dinner. By the time your workday ends, you arrive famished at the dinner table scrambling for whatever’s there. That’s when cravings for flour and sugar skyrocket. Depleted, your body will crave the calories it can break down quickly and easily.
Again, planning ahead is key: prepped dishes, pre-ordered meals, or delicious left-overs provide healthy nutrition in an instant. Also, you may simply need a “second lunch.” Instead of going from a noon lunch to an 8 o’clock dinner, you could eat an early dinner at work, or have a large snack to fuel yourself until the evening. The idea is to move away from having your largest meal right before bed, a habit that may contribute to bad sleep, digestive discomfort, and weight gain.
Making small changes:
All of this takes time and lots of patience too, but I’ve found that making smaller changes over a longer period of time allows you to sustainably integrate healthy habits. No one wants to diet all the time. Busy professionals, like you don’t need a second job constantly managing their weight. Here at Happy Belly Health, we strongly believe in coaching around these habits rather than providing meal plans and strict diets to follow. Our approach nurtures long-term growth and self-empowerment. We don’t help you diet, we help you not have to.
Client experiences working with Happy Belly Health:
“If you are tired of all that yo-yo dieting, struggling with food, and feeling like a failure (like I was), then I strongly recommend Happy Belly Health. This is an entirely different kind of experience – and a very good one! At least it was for me.” -Kathy S.
“Happy Belly Health is absolutely amazing! They honestly saved my life…“-Kim B.
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