Nutrition for a New Year
Eating slowly and mindfully
Modern day life tends to move at a million miles per hour. We are scrambling to make the next work event, to meet the next deadline, to pick up the kids from school, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, such a hectic daily schedule can lead to us not being able to enjoy something that is so fundamental to our existence - the food we eat. We need to do our level best to carve out time to sit down and enjoy the food we have prepared or that has been prepared for us. If we are still struggling to slow down after that, there are a few tricks we can leverage to get the ball back in our court:
Eat with our non-dominant hand
Put our knife and fork down after each bite
Use chopsticks to eat our food
Stop at 80% full
This is closely tied to the aforementioned habit of slowing down our eating and being mindful. Initially we may have to do some experimenting to establish what 80% full means to us. If we are eating out at a restaurant then maybe we make it a point to leave enough on the plate that we have to get a to-go box. The same when we eat at home - leave enough that requires it to be put in the fridge to finish off tomorrow. Once we start to mesh these first two habits together, we will find that we get more full quicker with less amounts of food being eaten - and we won’t feel as stuffed as before. All great news for weight management and just feeling better overall.
Drink half of your bodyweight in water
We cannot survive as human beings without water. As a result, striving to maintain adequate levels of daily hydration is something we need to aspire to. That said, it can be a little confusing to know how much water we should drink per day. There is so much information out there that we are constantly being bombarded with when it comes to water intake. Drink 8 glasses per day. Forget glasses, drink 6 bottles of water. How much is the right amount?! An easy way to remember it which allows us to make it personalized to us and our body is to aim to drink half of our body weight (in lbs) of water (in ounces) per day. So, a person that weighs 150 lbs would be looking to drink 75 ounces of water per day.
Drink as many zero calorie drinks as possible
Whether it’s orange juice for breakfast, a loaded up coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, or a few glasses of wine at dinner, consuming drinks that contain calories can really sneak up. If weight management is a goal, this is an opportunity to go after some low-hanging fruit to make a dent in our push for weight loss or just feeling better overall. It is wise for us to do an inventory check of all the drinks we are having every day that contain calories. If we can find a place where we can remove 100 calories per day from these sources, we get an eye-opening reminder of last week's discussion about consistency compounding and its power. If we can find a way to remove 100 calories per day from what we are drinking, that translates to over 36,000 less calories per year that we will ingest. Yes, over 36,000!!!
Don’t let a wobble turn into a fall
We are all going to fall off the nutritional wagon - and do so multiple times. The key is to not let it turn into a disaster. When we fall off, get straight back on - whether that’s the next meal or the next day. It can be tempting to just write off the day or the week or the month for that matter, and tell ourselves that we’ll be back at it next Monday. The problem with this all or nothing mentality is that it is a sure-fire way to failure over the long-term. Don’t expect it to be perfect because it won’t be. We must accept that we will make mistakes. And we must do everything in our power to make sure that when we do, it’s just a wobble and not a fall.
