Eating junk food is one of the toughest habits to kick when making lifestyle changes. The food is chemically engineered to hook you, lighting up your brain as soon as it hits your taste buds. A couple of hours later, it will leave you feeling unsatisfied and still hungry as junk food is highly processed and broken down by the body quickly.
Don’t feel bad if you are stuck in this vicious cycle, you are not alone! By shifting to a whole-food-based diet, your body will feel much better, recover faster after workouts, and will stay full longer. In this article, we will review some rare but extremely effective techniques to help you achieve physical greatness through healthy eating habits.
Reprogram How You Think About Food
First, you must start by dividing foods into two categories: ‘Food’ and ‘Junk.’ Food will help you achieve your goals, make you happy, and grant you the life you were put on earth to have. Junk will set you back and bring you pain in life. Eating real food will create a domino effect in your life. Your mind and body will be clear which creates a perfect environment for success to thrive. Success will poor into your life in relationships, finances, at your job, and most importantly, at the gym. Junk food will make you feel tired, hurting, and your energy level will be greatly lower. Once you have successfully programmed your mind to crave healthy food, everything else will fall into place.
Consume Positive Media
All forms of media are outlets for junk food companies to advertise to you. The worst of it can be found on cable TV. Try your best to avoid this form of media as it has the worst subliminal effect on your eating habits. The images, sounds, and marketing are all perfectly executed to make their food nearly irresistible. Platforms like Instagram and Twitter are better because they are customizable. Of course, abstaining from social media completely is preferable but if you are going to participate, follow pages that offer value. Seek pages that give you fitness tips, positively alter your mindset, or provide you a leader to look up to. Consuming constructive media will help you make small changes each day. Before you know it, you will begin to see junk food as an enemy to your goals.
Schedule Time to Meal Prep Each Week
We all live busy lives. Having food at the ready is essential when you do not have time to cook every meal. When it comes to meal prepping, make sure you focus on cooking with whole foods. Try your best not to buy prepared food from a store that has been processed. No frozen packaged meals! If you are going to eat it, go all the way and prepare fresh every week. When you have meals ready to go in the fridge, it sways you from going out to get fast food. It is much easier to eat what is already ready and in front of you. It saves money and time which you can spend doing other productive things.
Eat Like Our Ancestors
A good question to ask yourself before eating food is: Would our ancestors eat this? This question weeds out processed foods and toxic ingredients. Counting calories is important but so is counting ingredients. Low quality and fake ingredients will slow down your metabolism which nullifies the calories saved from eating these ingredients. It is best to only eat whole foods that provide you with all the macro and micronutrients that your body needs rather than using fake supplements.
Use Money Saved to Buy New Clothes
A few months later of eating real food, you will have a new body. Reward yourself with some fresh clothes that fit you properly and make you feel great. This will help you reinforce your new habits through a positive feedback loop. A few compliments from your peers may even pour in which will push you even further. They too will be inspired, allowing you to make a positive impact on their life.
The best way to resist the temptation of junk food is by reprogramming how you think about it. It can be hard, especially if you have harmful media consumption habits. Start with one small change to begin programming your mind and everything else will begin to fall into place if you keep chipping away at it.
We all live busy lives but there are plenty of ways we can still make time for ourselves even when life gets hectic! One idea is meal prepping – cooking fresh food in advance each week instead of grabbing something unhealthy from the store or ordering take-out. The money saved from meal prepping can also be used to buy new clothes as a great way of reinforcing your healthy eating habits!