How to Change Your Eating Habits Into Healthy Eating

I have days when I do not care what I eat and on the other hand I have days when I really want to change the way I eat and in general my attitude towards food. For the past six months, I have tried to make a concious effort for eating healthy and I would like to share my experience with you all. Remeber eating healthy does not have to be dieting but making small changes to your existing eating style. You do not have to starve yourself or not eat anything at all but changing the quantity you eat of that rich food will help imensely.

It all started this year in March when my son started eating solids regularly. And now that he was eating solids for his meals, I wanted to give him nutritious food instead of the junk that I was eating sometimes. So I decided to read few books on healthy eating ways and from the information I got, my mind actually boggled. There was so much information there about the kind of food that we should be eating that the task started seeming pretty daunting to me. So I decided to do it my way.

I am a great fan of writing and whenever I am faced with a problem I first write down my problem to see if I can look at the problem through fresh pair of eyes. It's not always the best method but thanks to my ongoing study in Lifecoaching, I find it works for me. So I wrote down what I was eating on daily basis. And at the end of the day I would go through what I ate and at what time. I found out that for me the time between 3-6pm was worse as I used to get hungry and as the dinner time was still far away used to munch on things like chapaties or biscuits etc. So then I decided to arrange my food for the day and for the next three days, I set a menu and did the shopping accordingly.

I gave myself rich food like chapaties or bread, eggs & milk for the breakfast which would take me through till lunch time. I saw that I wasn't getting hungry till lunchtime as I had a good heavy breakfast in the morning. Then for the lunch I reduced the amount of rice I was having and added some salad to my lunch. I also had a glass of water with a hint of lemon and honey (my favourite flavour) just before the lunch so that I didn't end up eating as much. This actually took me thorugh till 3pm and then I had some cut fruits (which I had cut the previous day as if you have a choice between cutting a fruit to eat or grabbing a biscuit, I know which one I would choose.) and again had some more water. This meant that I could stay without eating junk till 5pm. Now at five in the evening I decided to have some fruit juice in order to keep me going till my dinner time followed with some dried fruit and nuts packet that I had bought from the supermarket. I also started taking my son out for a walk at about 5:30 or so and didn't come back till almost 6:30. This meant that I was that much closer to my dinner time without having had anything junk to fill my time and had some excercise in the meanwhile too. Then at 6:30 I started preparing for the family dinner and then by 7:30 in the evening when my husband came back from work, we would have dinner together. I also added salads to our dinner and after a while we got used to eating them though initially it wasn't a very welcome taste. We ate the salad first so that we didn't have to eat too much after that. And we tried changing few of our weekly meals of rice and daal with pasta or grilled fish or chicken. This gave us the much needed variety as well as low calary intake.

So without realising not only was I eating better but also was losing weight and was on my way to become fit. In our family we normally do not cook on weekends and prefer to go out to eat. So it wasn't easy not to eat junk when you are having four meals a week out but then we changed some of our habits. We switched from having sodas everytime with our meal to only one glass with one meal in a week. The rest of the times we just opted for water. And no matter where we went to eat out, we always added salad as the starters so that the rest of the meal wasn't as much as we would normally have. I also try and have atleast 8 glasses of water a day but it was not easy as I didn't feel thirsty often. So I added some flavour to my water and kept a bottle where I sat so that I could sip from it every now and then. It took me atleast three months or so but now I do drink a lot of water. I also cut down on my suger intake. I used to like Indian sweets and would have some every week but now I only have sugery sweets for an occasion or a festival. And when I am making sweets at home, I use jaggery instead of suger. Even this minute change helps towards healthy eating.

I now do not keep any sodas or crisps at home. I only bring them if we are having friends around but then also I bring singles instead of big lot. This helps us not having the temptation of sodas and crisps around everyday. I have also stopped buying sugery biscuits but I buy instead packed dry fruit which my son also likes. I keep nuts and fruits handy for those craving times. I also do not buy the normal juice drinks or juices with lots of suger in it. I buy the organic juice without the added suger. I know it's lot of changes but if you do them one at a time and with lots of practice, you will get used to incorporating healthy eating habits in your lifestyle. After all what you eat will have a straight impact on your and your family's lifestyle. Keep yourself motivated and the times when you feel you are hungry the most, try going out for a walk or call some friends over or go to the library to get your mind off food. When you go out, you will automatically burn some of the calories too which will be an added bonus.

I remember reading this on net, that it does not take lots of extra calories but only a hundred or so calories extra will make your body fat increase dramatically. So on the positive side if you only cut down few hundred calories from your meal, you will be on your way to reducing your body fat, eating helthy and leading a fit and healthy lifestyle.