Healthy Habits to Save a Sinking Diet, Part I

Quicksand Diet: Regularly Using Food as a Reward
Healthier Habit: Create Rewarding Zero-Calorie Solutions for Progress
Far too often, avid dieters follow periods of healthy eating or exercise with extravagant, unhealthy, food-based reward binges, regularly sabotaging their nutrition-conscious eating efforts in the process. Rather than rewarding healthy eating with unhealthy eating, develop creative zero-calorie perks to positively enhance the personal pursuit of healthy habits. Maximal means of motivation include new clothes, sports equipment, a well-deserved "diversion excursion" to the spa, a cultural or athletic outing, or simply take a personal day and relax, or catch up on everything on life's back-burner. Ultimately, the perfect reward system should not sabotage our lifestyle, but serve as an empowering, rejuvenating source of pride, progress, and inspiration for future achievement.

Quicksand Diet: Impulsively Eating for Comfort, Taste, to De-Stress, or Out of Boredom
Healthier Habit: Eat for Energy, View Food as Fuel
Honestly reflecting upon personal eating habits inevitably contributes to a greater sense of overall understanding, while allowing us to adopt necessary healthier changes. A wide array of influences may regularly trigger unhealthy episodes of uncontrolled eating. Focus on the most significant, avoidable trends and create an environment conducive to long-term success. Helpful suggestions include a nutrition-conscious pantry, organized meal planning, increased activity levels, healthier stress management alternatives, and fun, new recipe research. Addressing the root sources for eating can powerfully transform our dietary goals. Oftentimes, we neglect the original, primary function of food, to provide energy! Ideally, our bodies are designed to activate our appetite, in response to physical energy needs. Diets high in sugar and unhealthy fats dangerously derail our natural hunger cycle, by disrupting hormone interaction, damaging pertinent cell receptors, and decreasing insulin sensitivity. Focusing on food as a source of fuel, growth and repair, and vitality, rather than the aforementioned superficial, secondary reasons, will re-energize the body, improve mental acumen, and support our desired body composition changes.

Quicksand Diet: Following the Traditional Three Meals Each Day, Big Dinner Pattern
Healthier Habit: Adopt a Common Caloric Sense Strategy
Humans remain incredibly stubborn creatures of habit, healthy and unhealthy alike. The "traditional eater" consumes three meals per day, with dinner generally emerging as the featured meal of the day. The "traditional dieter" may skip breakfast altogether, but generally follows the same progressive caloric intake pattern throughout the day. Ultimately, these strategies remain alarmingly counter-intuitive to an energy-based approach to weight loss. Jumpstarting our mornings with a balanced, protein-rich breakfast will increase satiety (fullness) for the rest of the day, awaken our metabolism from its overnight slumber, and provide a sustained source of energy for the tasks ahead. Why do a majority of dieters continue to eat the greatest amount of calories at night, when our energy requirements remain at their lowest levels? Extensive episodes of pre-bedtime eating may disrupt sleep patterns, result in unnecessary food storage as fat, and hinder the natural release of powerful weight-loss and repair hormones. Matching our eating patterns with the day's energy requirements (including small, nutritious snacks between meals to keep our metabolism firing) remains a significantly healthier alternative to the "traditional eating" pattern. Take pride in breaking the three-meal, big-dinner mold, while reaping the rewards in the process!