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From Cravings to Control: A Practical Guide to Healthy Eating Habits

Guide to Healthy Eating Habits
Table of Contents

Break Free from the Weight-Loss Rollercoaster

We’ve all been there, wanting to shed a few extra pounds. But often, the focus on weight loss overshadows the importance of a healthy diet, leading us into a relentless cycle of losing and regaining weight. It’s time to break free from this exhausting ride and discover a more sustainable path to health.

Have you ever tried the ‘yoghurt diet’? You eat almost nothing but yoghurt for weeks, dropping weight fast, only to see it return just as quickly. This approach isn’t just unsustainable; it turns your well-being into a health rollercoaster.

Why do these diets seem to work at first? It’s all about how our bodies handle carbohydrates. When we cut carbs, our bodies burn through glycogen stores, and with every gram of glycogen lost, we shed about four grams of water. So, that quick weight loss is mostly water, not fat. And the moment carbs come back into your diet, so does the weight.

That’s why drastic carb-cutting isn’t the answer. Remember, fibre is a carb too, and it’s vital for our digestive health. Sustainable weight loss isn’t about quick fixes; it’s about making healthy eating a consistent part of your lifestyle.

Losing 1 to 2 pounds (0.45 – 0.9 kg) per week is a realistic and sustainable goal [1]. This steady pace helps you build a balanced relationship with food and establish long-term healthy habits.

If the thought of transitioning to healthier habits feels overwhelming, remember this: just as unhealthy choices can become routine through repetition, so can healthy ones. The key is repetition — keep at it, and soon those healthier choices will become second nature [2].

The Habit Strength Index (HSI) shows a steady increase, indicating that it gradually becomes second nature as you stick to your healthy eating plan. The small dips represent occasional challenges or relapses, but don’t worry—these are normal parts of the journey. The secret is repetition: do it for long enough, and you’ll find healthy eating becomes a natural part of your life without the feelings of missing out.

Ready to break the cycle and embrace a healthier eating routine? Let’s get started.

Use Different Types of Goals Strategically to Set the Direction

To effectively navigate the path to a healthier lifestyle, you can utilise different types of goals. By strategically setting and intertwining outcome, process, and identity goals, you can create a clear roadmap that guides your actions and fosters long-term habits and identity shifts.

Let’s explore how these types of goals work together and how you can leverage them for lasting change.

Intertwined Goals

Outcome Goals
  • Example: Reduce cholesterol levels by 20 points in three months.
  • Focus: The end result you want to achieve from your efforts.
  • Purpose: Provide a clear target to strive for and measurable results.
  • Strategy: These goals often serve as the initial motivation and direction for your efforts.
Process Goals
  • Example: Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
  • Focus: The specific actions you will take regularly to improve your diet.
  • Purpose: Break down the steps needed to reach your outcome goal and focus on the actions and behaviours that will lead to the desired outcome.
  • Strategy: These goals help you develop the habits and routines necessary to make progress towards your outcome goal.
Identity Goals
  • Example: Become the type of person who makes nutritious food choices.
  • Focus: The kind of person you want to become, which will naturally lead to behaviours that support this identity.
  • Purpose: Help you become the type of person who naturally engages in the behaviours required to achieve your outcome goal.
  • Strategy: These goals support long-term sustainability by making the new behaviours a core part of your self-identity.

Concrete Steps for Real Change

Pinpoint and Modify Specific Behaviours

To achieve your outcome goals, such as losing 15 pounds in three months, turn these goals into actionable steps [3, 4]:

1. Start with a List

Make a list of specific eating habits that contribute to an unhealthy diet. Do you find yourself snacking on chips after dinner or grabbing a soda with your lunch? Identifying these habits gives you a clear target to modify.

2. Make It Specific

Frame your identified behaviours into tangible, measurable goals [5, 6, 7]. Instead of saying, “I’ll eat healthier,” specify “I’ll replace my afternoon cookies with a piece of fruit on weekdays.”

3. Track Progress

Design your goals so you can clearly see your progress. For example, if you drink soda daily, set a goal to choose water instead during lunch four times a week. By week’s end, you can look back and see how many days you succeeded.

Examples of Specific Process Goals:

Identified BehaviourSpecific Process Goal
Snacking on cookies after lunchReplace afternoon cookies with a piece of fruit on weekdays
Drinking soda with mealsLimit soda intake to one glass during the weekend only
Eating take-out 4-5 times weeklyCook dinner at home at least four nights a week
Regularly overeating for dinnerStart meals with a salad or soup to curb hunger

Turn Tracking into a Fun Game

Monitor Progress in a Fun Way

Did you know that keeping a food diary can double your weight loss efforts? A study involving nearly 1,700 participants showed that those who updated their food diaries daily lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t jot down their meals. This effect was even stronger when combined with regular support sessions [10].

Make Monitoring Fun:

Consider setting up a ‘to monitor’ list where you can tick off daily wins, like drinking your target amount of water or adding veggies to your meals. These little checkmarks can be incredibly rewarding and push you forward.

Example: I’ve personally experienced the thrill of turning diet tracking into a motivational game. Initially focusing on my daily fibre intake, I gradually expanded my tracking to include calories, proteins, carbs, and fats. Competing against my own records became an engaging way to make healthier daily choices, like opting for high-fibre brown rice over white rice.

This is a snapshot of my daily food diary, tracking fibre and more.

Embrace Your Health-Conscious Identity

Reinforce Your Identity as a Health-Conscious Person

In his book “Atomic Habits,” James Clear discusses how small changes help reinforce the identity you want to build [11].

He argues that the key to making lasting improvements in your life lies in shifting your focus from outcomes to identity.

Think About the Type of Person You Want to Be

Do you want to be someone who moves more and makes healthy food choices? Start by proving this new identity to yourself with small, consistent actions [9]. For example, take a few extra steps each day or swap white rice for brown rice. By doing this, you’ll build identity-based habits, making it easier to stick to your new behaviours and achieve your desired results over time.

This concept of identity-based habits aligns with the psychology of self-perception theory [8], which suggests that people develop their attitudes and beliefs by observing their own behaviour and concluding what attitudes must have caused them. Essentially, it means that we infer our own identities from our actions.

Examples of Small Changes:

  • Swap Sugary for Natural: Choose all-natural peanut butter over varieties with added sugars and oils.
  • Choose Whole Grains: Opt for brown rice and wholemeal pasta and bread instead of their refined counterparts.
  • Prep Vegetables in Advance: Keep ready-to-eat veggies in your fridge for snacks or quick meal additions.
  • Begin Meals with Greens: Starting your meals with a salad or soup can curb hunger and reduce overall calorie intake.

By proving your new identity to yourself with small wins, you align your behaviour with the person you want to become, which can lead to lasting change.

These strategies help set a clear direction, track progress, and reinforce a health-conscious identity. By integrating these steps into your daily routine, you can achieve and sustain healthier eating habits, transforming your overall well-being.

Having set the direction with clear and strategic goals, the next step is to create an environment that supports and simplifies these healthy choices. When your surroundings make it easy to choose well, you reduce the need for constant willpower and decision-making, allowing your new habits to take root effortlessly.

Make It Easier to Do the Right Things

Simplifying Healthy Choices Through Your Environment

Research strongly supports the idea that structuring your environment to make healthy choices straightforward, while placing hurdles in the way of less desirable behaviours, can significantly boost your ability to maintain a healthy diet.

This concept is rooted in behavioural psychology and environmental design principles [18, 19].

Essentially, when something is easier and more convenient, we’re naturally more inclined to do it. This approach minimises the need for constant decision-making, allowing your good habits to take centre stage with less effort [3, 7, 12].

Shape your environment for better eating habits: Keep tempting foods like cookies out of sight and place healthy options like fruits within easy reach. Make the healthy choice the easy choice!

Practical Strategies to Shape the Environment for Healthy Eating

1. Reorganise the Kitchen:
  • See What’s Good: Place fruits and vegetables at eye level in your fridge or on the counter. When healthy options are the first things you see, you’re more likely to reach for them.
  • Hide the Temptations: Store treats and less healthy snacks on higher shelves or in the back of the cupboard, or better yet, don’t buy them at all.
2. Prep Healthy Meals in Advance:
  • Sunday Set-Up: Spend some time on your day off preparing meals for the week. When you’re exhausted and the lure of fast food calls, having a healthy meal just a microwave minute away can make all the difference.
3. Healthy Snacks at Hand:
  • Grab-and-Go Goodies: Keep wholesome snacks like fruits, nuts, or yoghurt within easy reach at home and work. When hunger strikes, the healthy choice should be the easiest option.
4. Modify Your Routes:
  • Avoid Temptation: If possible, alter your commute to avoid passing by fast-food joints, reducing the temptation for impulsive, unhealthy meals.
5. Automate Healthy Subscriptions:
  • Effortless Stocking: Sign up for services that deliver healthy meals or fresh produce right to your doorstep. These subscriptions make it effortless to keep your fridge stocked with nutritious foods.
6. Social Environment:
  • Healthy Company: Surround yourself with a community that shares your values of healthy eating. Join local meet-ups or online groups to strengthen your resolve and enthusiasm for your dietary goals.

By intentionally designing your surroundings to promote healthier choices, you’re essentially setting yourself up for success. This strategy not only increases your odds of long-term dietary success but also reduces the reliance on sheer willpower.

Acknowledging Limits

However, sometimes, customising our environment isn’t feasible, and we face challenges head-on. In those moments, it’s vital to have a proactive strategy ready.

This could involve setting up action triggers, where you decide in advance how to respond to specific situations, ensuring you stay on track even under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Choose Action Triggers: I Will Do X When Y

Harnessing the Power of Implementation Intentions

Setting predefined action triggers, or “implementation intentions,” is a powerful strategy that psychology research robustly supports.

These triggers simplify decision-making by establishing clear if-then plans, detailing precisely when, where, and how you’ll act to achieve your goals.

This technique is particularly beneficial for maintaining healthy eating habits in less controlled environments, like dining out or attending social events [3, 12].

Practical Implementation Intentions for Everyday Healthy Eating

1. Eating Out: Order with Intention
  • Rule: “When I eat out, I will order a salad or soup.”
  • Benefit: This decision can steer you away from less healthy options, making dining out less of a dietary pitfall.
2. Handling Cravings: Sweet Satisfaction with a Healthy Twist
  • Rule: “When I crave something sweet, I’ll enjoy a piece of fruit or yoghurt instead.”
  • Benefit: Offering a satisfying but healthier alternative to indulgent desserts keeps you on track without feeling deprived.
3. Social Events: Plate Your Party Wisely
  • Rule: “At gatherings, I’ll fill half my plate with vegetables and fruits first.”
  • Benefit: This plan helps you stay balanced even at a buffet brimming with temptations, ensuring you get plenty of nutritious options.
4. During Stress: Swap Stress Eating with Healthy Habits
  • Rule: “If I’m stressed and tempted by junk food, I’ll take a five-minute walk or do a quick meditation instead.”
  • Benefit: Managing stress-induced cravings healthily prevents emotional eating and promotes mental well-being.

Why Implementation Intentions Are Effective

1. Strengthening Commitment and Response: Making Healthy Choices Automatic

These plans create a mental connection between a specific cue (the ‘when’) and your planned action (the ‘what’). This link helps your response become almost automatic once the cue occurs, significantly boosting your likelihood of sticking to your goals.

2. Reducing Cognitive Load: Less Thinking, More Doing

By planning your reactions in advance, you reduce the mental effort required in the moment. This makes it easier to adhere to your plan even in tempting settings, such as a restaurant with a tantalising menu.

3. Improving Decision Making Under Stress: Staying Strong in Tough Times

Stressful or tempting situations can lead to decision fatigue, often resulting in less healthy choices. Decision fatigue occurs when your ability to make decisions deteriorates after a long session of decision-making, leading to impulsive or poor choices. With a plan already in place, you’re better equipped to navigate these challenges and keep your diet on track.

By thoughtfully setting these action triggers, you empower yourself to make healthier choices automatically, reducing reliance on willpower alone.

Persisting Through Setbacks

Embrace Setbacks as Stepping Stones

A day where things don’t go as planned isn’t an endpoint — it’s a chance to start fresh tomorrow. Every new day offers a new opportunity. I learned this through my own journey of quitting smoking, which involved numerous attempts before finally succeeding. Each setback taught me something new, ultimately guiding me to success [17].

The Science Behind Persistence

Understanding the Stages of Change

Persisting through setbacks is crucial for long-term dietary success. Behavioural change generally moves through stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. It’s normal to cycle through these, especially between action and maintenance, learning and growing with each attempt.

1. Precontemplation:
  • Phase: Not yet recognising the need for change.
  • Strategy: Begin by educating yourself about the benefits of healthy eating.
2. Contemplation:
  • Phase: Recognising the need for change but not yet ready to take action.
  • Strategy: Weigh the pros and cons, and start planning small steps.
3. Preparation:
  • Phase: Getting ready to take action.
  • Strategy: Set clear, achievable goals and prepare your environment for success.
4. Action:
  • Phase: Actively making changes.
  • Strategy: Implement your plans and stay consistent with your healthy habits.
4. Maintenance:
  • Phase: Sustaining the changes long-term.
  • Strategy: Reinforce your habits and adjust strategies as needed to prevent relapse.

Learning from Each Attempt

Every effort, even the unsuccessful ones, deepens your understanding of what triggers and hinders you, enhancing your strategies for better managing your eating habits and maintaining weight loss.

Personal Anecdote

During my journey to quit smoking, I realised that gradually reducing cigarettes didn’t work for me. Instead, I needed to stop altogether. This was a strategy I adjusted, and it taught me the importance of finding what works best for me personally.

By embracing setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow, you can maintain your motivation and resilience, ultimately leading to long-term success in your healthy eating journey.

Your Path to a Healthier Lifestyle

Embarking on a healthier eating lifestyle is a journey filled with learning experiences and growth. It’s perfectly normal to find that not all strategies fit seamlessly into your unique lifestyle. Embrace the techniques that resonate with you and adapt or set aside those that don’t. Remember, each new day is a fresh start, offering a new opportunity to make positive changes.

Key Strategies for Success

  1. Set Strategic Goals: Use outcome, process, and identity goals to set a clear direction and foster lasting change.
  2. Shape Your Environment: Make healthy choices easier by organising your kitchen, prepping meals in advance, and surrounding yourself with supportive people.
  3. Choose Action Triggers: Implement if-then plans to simplify decision-making and maintain healthy habits even in less controlled environments.
  4. Persist Through Setbacks: Treat setbacks as learning experiences. Reflect, adjust your strategies, and keep moving forward.

Take the Next Step: Your Customizable Food Diary

To support your journey and keep these valuable strategies at your fingertips, I’ve created a versatile OneNote template. This digital tool is designed to help you organise, monitor, and refine your dietary habits effectively. Customising it with your own action triggers and goals for a personal touch.

Why Use the OneNote Template?

  • Organise Your Goals: Keep track of your outcome, process, and identity goals.
  • Monitor Progress: Easily update your progress and reflect on your journey.
  • Accessible Anywhere: Access and update your template anytime, anywhere — right on your laptop or mobile device with the OneNote App.

Start Your Journey Today

Ready to take control of your health and start your journey towards a healthier lifestyle? Download the OneNote template now and begin organising your path to better health today!

Download the OneNote Template

You can follow this Microsoft guide on how to import OneNote notebooks.

References

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, September 19). Losing Weight . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html

[2] University of Warwick. (2019, January 28). Train the brain to form good habits through repetition. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 13, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190128105227.htm

[3] Young, S. (2017). Stick with It: The Science of Lasting Behaviour. Penguin Publishing Group.

[4] It’s Your Yale. (n.d.). Hit the mark when you set SMART goals | It’s Your Yale. Your.yale.edu. Retrieved May 14, 2024, from https://your.yale.edu/hit-mark-when-you-set-smart-goals

[5] Midwest Comprehensive Center at American Institutes for Research. (2018, May). Studen Goal Setting: An Evidence-Based Practice. ERIC Institute of Education Science. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED589978.pdf

[6] Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task motivation: a 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705

[7] Young, S. (2017). Stick with It: The Science of Lasting Behaviour. Penguin Publishing Group.

[8] The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Self Perception Theory. The Decision Lab. Retrieved May 14, 2024, from https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/psychology/self-perception-theory

[9] Trump, C.E., Herrod, J.L., Ayres, K.M. et al. Behavior Momentum Theory and Humans: A Review of the Literature. Psychol Rec 71, 71–83 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-020-00430-1

[10] Kaiser Permanente. (2008, July 8). Keeping A Food Diary Doubles Diet Weight Loss, Study Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 13, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708080738.htm

[11] Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Penguin Publishing Group.

[12] Hollins, P. (2019). Neuro-Discipline: Everyday Neuroscience for Self-Discipline, Focus, and Defeating Your Brain’s Impulsive and Distracted Nature. PKCS Media, Inc.

[13] Polivy J. The false hope syndrome: unrealistic expectations of self-change. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2001 May;25 Suppl 1:S80-4. doi: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0801705. PMID: 11466595.

[14] Chowdhury, M. R. (2019, May 2). A Look at the Psychology of Goal Setting (Incl. 3 Research Findings). PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/goal-setting-psychology/

[15] Souders, B. (2019, November 5). Motivation and What Really Drives Human Behavior. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/motivation-human-behavior/

[16] Chipman, I. (2023, September 19). The Power of Realistic Expectations. Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/power-realistic-expectations

[17] Datu JAD (2021) Beyond Passion and Perseverance: Review and Future Research Initiatives on the Science of Grit. Front. Psychol. 11:545526. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.545526

[18] Bucher T, Collins C, Rollo ME, et al. Nudging consumers towards healthier choices: a systematic review of positional influences on food choice. British Journal of Nutrition. 2016;115(12):2252-2263. doi:10.1017/S0007114516001653

[19] Floor M. Kroese, David R. Marchiori, Denise T. D. de Ridder, Nudging healthy food choices: a field experiment at the train station, Journal of Public Health, Volume 38, Issue 2, June 2016, Pages e133–e137, https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdv096

[20] Wang G, Wang Y and Gai X (2021) A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions on Goal Attainment. Front. Psychol. 12:565202. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.565202

[21] Elly Mcgrath, Chris J Armitage, Shane Mckie, Tim Millar, Asmuni Ab-Ghani, Rebecaa Elliott, Evidence That Implementation Intentions Enhance Cognitive Training and Reduce Alcohol Consumption in Heavy Drinkers: A Randomised Trial, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 54, Issue 6, June 2020, Pages 391–401, https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaz056

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