3 Steps to change your diet

As part of that I do these simple steps videos and this is part two of the topic, nutrition. The first video I covered just three of the holistic benefits of looking at your nutrition and maybe making some simple changes in order to be eating a more natural diet. 

In this video I'm going to consider some ways that you could get started - so three simple steps in order to start introducing a healthier more nutritious diet into your lifestyle. 

Firstly, observe how you're feeling; whilst you're eating, before you're eating, after you're eating and what it is you're eating. 


Often we can think or our mind tells us "I deserve that chocolate bar, I'm gonna eat that chocolate bar" you eat it, you perhaps enjoy it in the moment and afterward you think "why on earth did I eat that chocolate bar?" 

So just become aware of the feelings around your eating habits and the increased awareness around that can really help motivate towards making some of the changes and see some of the patterns that we're in. 

There's lots of ways to get started so I'm going to give a range of different options that you could do. 
The first one could be have a food diary. 
What do you eat? 
When do you eat it? 

You could also put how you're feeling alongside that. But just get an idea of actually what are you eating day to day, week to week. 
Another simple one is just try and add more vegetables. 
For each meal have an extra portion of veg. And with doing that you can see that sometimes some of the unhealthier stuff gets left off or it's a smaller portion of the things that aren't helpful, and you've got a bigger portion of the vegetables. 

Or look at your day and think "okay, well I normally always want a packet of crisps in the afternoon or chocolate bar or whatever it is" Whatever you feel is a key moment where you perhaps have a bit of a downfall, or could just be an opportunity to make a swap and instead of that chocolate, biscuits, crisps, whatever, that you choose to have something healthy, something natural and that is what you choose as your habit. 
Or drink a glass of water before having a meal.
That's another common one as well. There's several different types of hunger and they're not always because we actually need the nutrition. It could be because we're thirsty it could be because we're emotional, there's seven other ways that we interpret hunger. 

So just having a glass of water before your meal can sometimes stop you eating as much as you feel you need, or if you're hungry go for that glass of water and see actually was it thirst. 
Then the last option I'm going to provide is starting with a smaller plate. 
Probably heard this before, we get used to filling whatever size plate we have, so put your meal on a smaller plate, eat that and then consider actually are you still hungry? If you are, go back for more, but like in step one actually see what you're thinking, what you're feeling rather than just automatically eating everything on your plate or automatically going back for seconds. 

As a first step, just start to observe your thoughts and your emotions before after and during eating. 
Secondly pick a habit.
Thirdly is just choose one at a time. 

So just review, pick a habit and then review it at the end of the week, the end of the day, whatever you choose. Pick a time to review it, and if it's going well, add something else, if it isn't, stick with it or change it to something that you feel you might be more motivated to do. 

So that's my three simple steps to starting to make a change within your diet. 

If you do want to look at a particular diet; vegan, keto, Paleo, whatever or if you've got particular health concerns and symptoms that you want to address, then seek expert advice. Go to a nutritionist to get a tailor-made plan. 


But if you're just wanting to start to make some changes, then there's some simple ideas.
Anna
Owner of Pura Vida Living
A wellbeing company with the mission to keep well-being simple and accessible to everybody