Two positive tips for healthier eating
What does almost every successful person have in common? They usually had a big dream, but started small. The former CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, started as a stage hand on a tv set for ABC making $150 a week. Pastor Craig Groeschel of Life.Church a church reaching millions with their content and the YOUVERSION bible app started his church with less than 100 people in a garage when he was 30. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), well he was born a full-grown man, so maybe that’s a bad example.
But the point is most of the people or institutions we admire and look up to began small. But they did begin.
In the meantime, my main goal for me and for you is to cultivate healthier whole lives, in many areas. Over the last few years my wife and some close friends have led the charge in helping us in the area specific area of eating healthier. It’s been a journey, sprinkled with Brussel sprouts, cheeseburgers, grilled salmon, pizza, broccoli and ice cream. I eat way healthier than I did 5 years ago, but I still love crushing all the regular foods our culture loves to feast on.
My desire is to continue shifting my ratio of healthy intake higher and higher, and eating less of the things that are ultimately making me unhealthy. Even to the point where I have a real desire to plant and harvest a lot of my own vegetables. Having a garden is nothing new or revolutionary. But it is for me. I’ve never had one before.
I’m definitely a dreamer and maximizer, so when I have an idea I go all in. I’m an incredible starter…The problem is I’m not always a great finisher. Can anyone relate? So when I started thinking about a garden, I began to envision turning my entire 50’x50’ backyard into the garden of Eden. Forget the fact I have literally no gardening experience, I could see the vision.
Yet, my hard earned wisdom whispered that I would never make it happen, at least not at first. So instead, I scrummaged through some of my random wood that I had laying around. I had just enough lumber to create a 2’x3’ raised garden box. It’s a start. And just enough for me to be able to see if I can actually keep something alive long enough to taste its fruit, or crunchy peppers.
In my journey towards a healthier and whole life, I’m allowing my experience to engage patience.
I’m talking specifically about food and healthy eating but isn’t this true for almost everything in our life that we desire health for? All of us want a lush garden of the soul, one overflowing with fruit. Yet, too often though, I see myself and others compare our spiritual steps to those spiritual giants we’re familiar with and think, “I’ll never be as patient, sweet, and faithful as them.” And it leads us to not even begin the endeavor of putting the practices in place to realize the faith they cultivated. Most of those people started with small-short prayer and scripture reading practices, before they ever impacted their community the way we see. We could see this practice of starting small played out in careers, relationships, finances, and physical health over and over. Most of the time people dreamed big, and started small.
So, bringing it back around to your physical health and diet I want to share just two small practices that can help us move toward our goal of eating healthier. BY…starting small, and dreaming big.
1. Addition before Subtraction
Most diets and health tips start with prohibition. Meaning you start cutting all the old eating habits out cold turkey, and replace them healthy options. No sugar, no bread, no processed foods, etc. But studies show that the same neuropathways that are engaged with the use of cocaine are the same ones engaged by sugar. That must mean something, right? That’s why a full-blown subtraction of the foods we are addicted to is often short lived.
So surely this is nothing new, and I’m not a dietitian, but what if instead of starting with subtraction we started with addition. Meaning we aren’t focused on avoiding the unhealthy foods, as much as we are focused on eating the right healthy ones. So instead of not eating the ego waffles in the morning, we add a bowl of oatmeal with berries and banana and a little honey, and still eat our one waffle too. But maybe we choose to eat the oatmeal first, and then we only take a couple bites of the waffle after cause we’re already getting full.
And maybe you really love eating mac and cheese once a week. So, with your grilled salmon and broccoli you’ll add mac’n’cheese. When eating out we choose grilled or baked over fried, and add green beans in place of creamed corn, but still get the fries. There are tons of options.
The focus turns to adding the right things, instead of just punishing yourself from eating the unhealthy things.
2. Think About what you are eating
When I get barbeque it’s easy for me to order the chopped brisket sandwich smothered in Sweet BBQ sauce, fried onion strings, and loaded mashed potatoes with cheese and sour cream. Plus the biggest sweet tea they have to offer. Then halfway thru my meal I’m exhausted. Well, that’s because of all the insane amount of sugar and unhealthy carbs my body is trying to digest.
Our bodies just like so many other things in life, requires a certain amount of the right things for it to function correctly. When we give it too much of the things that maybe taste extremely good but lack the proper nutrients and is loaded with sugar, our bodies have to work so much harder to try and pull healthy benefits from them.
I think the biggest issue in our society is that we don’t even think about that. Instead, we are pulled in by all the marketing and the memory of each first bite of that tasty sweet treat.
Our goal, when paired with the first practice, should be to think about every bite we are ingesting. Think about how when you take a bite of healthy whole vegetables, or properly raised grass feed beef, your stomach is having a party digesting them, and sending out those proper nutrients to your blood stream and cells. And when we crush process meals over and over our body is having to search through the wreckage looking for possible survivors.
It’s not that we can’t enjoy the cake or the sweet treat, but we need to shift the way we think about what we are eating.
These are the two small strategies I am implementing to help me realize my big dream of being 60, 70, 80 years old full of health, energy, and vigor. I’m starting small, but dreaming big. I have my whole life to get this right, but I have to begin today, and you have the same option, for all the different areas of your life.
In the meantime, it will pay off to care for our bodies today, so we can continue enjoying them tomorrow!