![\"Greens.png\"](\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/greens.png\")
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\u201cA man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n – Spanish Proverb<\/strong><\/p>\n I strive to live on a healthy diet. I don\u2019t eat meat and eat very few animal products. I avoid white breads and rice. I rarely have caffeine and I do my best to avoid junk food. To a lot of people I must seem like a complete nut, avoiding \u201cgood tasting\u201d food. I think it might surprise people that there is little willpower required for me to eat healthy, even if I\u2019m surrounded by junk food.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t used to be a healthy eater. I wasn\u2019t living off the McDonald\u2019s menu, but I wasn\u2019t doing my body any favors. It took work to establish healthy eating habits, but now I actually enjoy it. Yesterday a ten-hour bus ride forced me to eat some gas-station cuisine and I couldn\u2019t stand it.<\/p>\n Contrary to most dieting advice I believe the key to healthy eating is neither knowledge or motivation. You probably already have a good idea about the basics of healthy eating, but that doesn\u2019t mean you don’t eat junk food. If you\u2019ve been trying and failing to change your eating patterns, you also probably have a strong motivation, but that doesn\u2019t mean your dieting will last.<\/p>\n In my attempts to improve my eating habits, the one factor that stuck out as the key to healthy eating is stability. Stability means that the changes you implement will last for years, not just a few weeks. If you try to give up coffee but are back on the brew in two weeks, your change lacked stability.<\/p>\n A great metaphor for stability is in the game Jenga. In the game you carefully remove wooden blocks from a tower, trying to increase its height. Being hasty, or removing weak blocks can cause the entire structure to collapse.<\/p>\n When I adopted a vegetarian diet and started kicking out other unhealthy foods from my eating patterns, I felt a number of forces resisting the changes. Stable changes require that you carefully navigated these forces, so that your habits don\u2019t collapse like the Jenga tower.<\/p>\n Here are just a few of the potential obstacles you can face in changing your eating patterns:<\/p>\n Handling these problems individually, I\u2019m sure most people could come up with potential solutions. But trying to tackle all of them simultaneously can push your willpower to the limits. Focusing on small, stable changes to your eating patterns can allow you to combat obstacles like these.<\/p>\n Once you start getting into the pattern of healthier eating, those patterns become habits. It only takes about three weeks for an eating pattern to become habitual. A small change such as giving up soft drinks, can turn into a habit.<\/p>\n Eventually, if you continue the process, these habits become part of your identity. Healthy eating doesn\u2019t just become something you strive for but something you live. This identity change takes time, but I believe it happens when you invest slowly in stable changes.<\/p>\n The constant building of little habits changes your perspective on eating. Instead of seeing eating as primarily a way to feel full and eat taste food, you can start to see it as the fuel and building blocks of your body. When you start to see food in that way, it becomes very difficult to slide back.<\/p>\n How do you start building stable changes? Here is the formula I use:<\/p>\n \u201cA man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.\u201d – Spanish Proverb I strive to live on a healthy diet. I don\u2019t eat meat and eat very few animal products. I avoid white breads and rice. I rarely have caffeine and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,679,6],"tags":[28],"class_list":{"0":"post-544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-discipline","7":"category-nc-habits","8":"category-health-and-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Key to Healthy Eating is Stability<\/h2>\n
How to Make Stable Eating Changes<\/h2>\n
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Stable Changes Lead to Habits and Identity<\/h2>\n
Boost Your Energy with One Change<\/h2>\n
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