[vc_row enable_grid_lines=””][vc_column][vc_column_text] Building new, healthier habits can be challenging. The best way to start is by assessing your current habits, educating yourself and creating a specific plan to stay on track.
Assess Current Habits
The first step in building healthy nutrition habits is recognizing the undesired habits you want to replace. Using a food record may be a helpful tool for bringing awareness to your current eating habits. By recording your food intake for a week, you will begin to recognize when you tend to skip a meal, eat too many snacks between meals or if you don’t eat enough vegetables. Take note of the time of day, location, situation and your feelings at the time to identify any patterns in your habits.
Educate Yourself
To build healthy nutrition habits, you first need to know the components of a healthy diet. Carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals and water are essential nutrients. Canada’s Food Guide and Health Canada’s Dietary Reference Intakes are helpful resources for determining how much of each nutrient is recommended as well as healthy sources of each. These resources will provide you with a general starting point, but further adjustments may need to be made based on your individual goals, dietary restrictions, or food preferences.
Set a Goal
If there are several habits you want to change, it is best to focus on one at a time to avoid becoming overwhelmed. If your goals are too broad you will have more trouble making progress and will be more likely to give up. Keep your first goal specific and simple so you are more likely to succeed. For example, picking a specific goal like substituting your regular evening snack of chips for a piece of fruit rather than a broad goal like “I am going to eat healthier” or “I am going to cut out junk food.” Once you have succeeded with one goal you can make your next goal a little more challenging.
Have a Plan
Before you start, set yourself up for success by planning meals for the week ahead of time, shopping for healthier snack options, cooking in advance or planning to make enough food for leftovers if you know you have a busy schedule. If there are certain times, locations, situations, or feelings associated with your unhealthy habits, plan accordingly. If you know you are more likely to overeat at night or when you are feeling stressed, have an activity planned at night to distract you or journal your feelings when feeling stressed.
Have Support
If your current habits are causing you a lot of stress and you are feeling discouraged about making a change, your trainer, a dietitian, physician or counsellor may be a helpful resource. Having the support of trusted friends or family can also provide you with motivation and accountability. Maybe you know someone in your life who also wants to create healthier habits and will make changes with you.
Kait Clarke is a graduate of Algonquin College’s Fitness and Health Promotion Program and she is a CSEP Certified Personal Trainer. She also has a graduate certificate in Nutrition for Sport and Performance at Niagara College. Her goal as a personal trainer is to create a compassionate and comfortable environment for her clients to thrive. You can find Kait training clients out of our Glebe location.
