Making healthy changes to our diets and improving our lifestyle is something that we all strive for. However, making these alterations can be scary and overwhelming, making it easy for us to revert to our past food habits.

Finding a long-term solution to making good food decisions is one of the only ways to create a sustainable, healthy diet. This makes it something that you can stick to for years to come.

Small Changes Create Big Solutions

Small alterations to familiar dishes are a great way to implement healthier habits. For example, if you replace white bread with wholewheat, or similarly changing to wholewheat pasta. These are small things that don’t impact the meals you eat, and yet they have benefits to your health and eating habits. Wholegrains help add fibre to your diet, B vitamins and are a good source of minerals, such as iron and zinc.

Don’t Restrict Yourself

A lot of the time we tend to crave bad food when we have made the decision to stop ourselves from eating it. Restrictions and boundaries can be helpful in small doses, but if you make a big declaration that you are never going to get a takeaway again, the likelihood is, you will be craving some greasy food within the next week, just because your brain is actively thinking about how you aren’t allowed to eat it.

Food is something we should enjoy and if your favourite food is “bad” for you, that doesn’t mean you should ban yourself from eating it ever again, but perhaps only allow yourself to eat it once a month. This makes it a treat to look forward to, rather than something you’re craving that will cause you to break your winning streak.

Try One New Recipe a Week

Trying a new recipe can help keep your food journey interesting and make sure you don’t get bored and revert to unhealthy habits. Whether it is a healthy recipe, or just something fun, all of it is experience to add to your repertoire and make you more comfortable and confident in the kitchen which can only be a good thing in your food journey.

Meal Prepping can save you Time and Pressure

Altering your diet can build up a lot of pressure to make you feel like you need to completely change your style of living and cook every day, and this is difficult to implement into daily lives. Meal planning and having a day to meal prep can ease the pressure of this. Meal planning means you don’t have to think about what food you’re going to eat on a daily basis, and it also means you don’t have to resort to something quick and unhealthy when you finish after a long day of work as your food has already been made and is ready to go.

Plus, setting a few hours aside every week to cook for yourself can be a new fun activity to implement into your life!

Don’t Give Up

One of the most important factors to changing your diet and building sustainable good food habits is not giving up. There will be many times where we cannot stick to our diet for whatever reason and once we have had that one slide, we will just give up all together. However, one slip doesn’t and shouldn’t mean the end. Forgive and forget your little errors and in the long run your body will thank you for continuing to try and better yourself.

Find What Works Best for You

Everyone’s bodies are different, so no matter how perfect a diet sounds and looks, it can work for one person and not at all for another. Try and find out what small changes you can make that work for your body, rather than focussing on what everyone around you is telling you. What food makes you feel good? What makes your body feel good? This could involve trying out different dietary restrictions, for example, cutting out dairy or meat to see how your body responds.

As long as you are in tune with how your diet is making you feel, and feel confident making small alterations to keep you feeling in top condition, you are sure to become your best self without forcing any drastic changes.

Hopefully these tips will help you all on the way to achieving your food goals of your dreams!

If you want to find out more about your food choices and how to make smart and sustainable decisions when it comes to your diet, make sure to sign up for our Body and Food Freedom: Free Yourself from Dieting workshop HERE! It’s happening at our Sheffield, Brook Place Studio on the 29^th January from 4pm-6:30pm.