Why Is Changing Your Diet So Difficult?

4 Ideas to Help you Change your Habits…

Originally featured on Harbour City CrossFit, Jennifer Broxterman, Registered Dietitian & Sports Nutritionist offers insight into what it means to have a healthy relationship with food.

DEVELOP A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received about nutrition is from a Registered Dietician and professor at the University of Western Ontario Jennifer Broxterman—also the owner of Nutrition-Rx (www.nutritionrx.ca).

She reiterated the importance of developing a healthy relationship with food.

What does this mean?

“If you’re questioning whether you have a good relationship with food, think about your relationship with water. You drink water throughout the day, but there’s no pressure about how much to drink or when to drink. You drink when you’re thirsty,” Broxterman said. “Most people have a natural relationship with water.”

She added: “If you’re thinking about food every 5 minutes, if it’s always on your mind, and you’ve lost that natural ability to listen to your body, then you probably don’t have a healthy relationship with food.”

One way to help become healthier is to stop labeling foods as good foods and bad foods, and to stop beating yourself up when you mess up, she explained.

“One of the things I often tell people is it’s a lot like brushing your teeth. Everyone has forgotten to brush their teeth here or there, but you normally don’t beat yourself up about if. Not brushing your teeth once doesn’t lead to a spiral effect of not brushing your teeth for a week. But that often happens with food. Someone ‘cheats,’ and then this spirals into a week of bad eating,” she said.

While Broxterman believes it’s important to eat whole, unprocessed foods most of the time, she believes it’s equally as important to indulge guilt-free here and there. The guilt-free part is the key, she said.

It’s the wanting what you can’t have philosophy, she explained. Preventing yourself from ever having a cheat meal will only lead to obsessing about all the food you can’t eat more than you should.

The point is, if you mess up, forget about it and move on.

For all four nutrition tips, read the full article here: https://harborcitycrossfit.com/changing-diet-difficult/