Hi all,
Recently I’ve been thinking a LOT about all the changes I want to make in my life as we turn the page to 2025. But if you’re like me, by one week into the year, you’ve already “messed up” on at least one of your firm resolutions and you’re starting to lose motivation. That’s just human😰 It’s not like on January 1 you suddenly turned into a new person with new habits!
The last couple of years I’ve found it’s much more motivating to take a different spin on resolutions. Instead of all-or-nothing rules, I have started to give myself guidelines. So instead of “I won’t snack in between meals ever,” my resolution might be, “I’m going to cut between-meal snacking down from three times a day to only one time a day.” That would still help me cut out about 14 in-between meal snacks during the week, but it also gives me a daily “break” to treat myself and avoid losing motivation!
In 2024, taking this guidelines-instead-of-rules approach helped me exercise twice as much as the prior year, cut my sugary snacks consumption in half and practice a whole lot of Spanish! On days when I “messed up” my motivation wasn’t broken, because I hadn’t given myself some unrealistic all-or-nothing ultimatum. I just looked at it as a little setback and kept chugging forward.
And by the way, this approach makes it easy to start a new resolution any time, not just January 1. So if you didn’t start a New Year’s resolution yet, you can still go for it! Give yourself permission to treat the first 7 days of the year as a short break before you started living by your new guidelines 🙂
With that in mind, here are two of my favorite healthy guidelines to consider building into your diet and lifestyle this year!
1. Add just one extra serving of whole, non-processed food to your daily diet.
This one is great, because no matter how “healthy” or “unhealthy” your diet is right now, it’ll help nudge you to eat more whole foods and less refined foods. And eating more whole foods is probably one of the most important things we can all do for our bodies and the environment. Studies have repeatedly shown diets rich in whole foods can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, body weight, and blood sugar levels. It can also decrease your risk of certain diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.
But if you don’t currently eat a lot of whole foods, it might be hard to know where to begin. Don’t let it be so daunting that you never get started. Adding just one more whole food serving to your daily diet can be so easy. Here are a few examples:
- Add mashed avocado to your bagel or toast. Liven it up with a little salt, lemon juice and whatever spices you like
- Swap a morning juice or fruit smoothie with a real, whole piece of fruit. I love this one because it actually means less food prep for you!. And if you saw our blog post on how much the way you get your fruit matters, you know why this is so good for you!
- Make your own simple trail mix in a tupperware and throw it in your backpack or purse - it can be as simple as raisins, craisins, nuts and a few pieces of dark chocolate. This is one of the best afternoon snacks for getting a ton of protein, energy and satisfying cravings without spending a lot at the vending machine. I can’t tell you how many times trail mix stopped me from buying a snickers bar!
- If you eat out, simply replace the side of fries or chips with a side salad and eat the salad first, while you’re most hungry. An added bonus is the fiber from eating veggies first will slow down the absorption into your body of any carbs you eat second!
2. Cook one extra meal at home each week
There are loads of 30 minute recipes out there. So make this one as easy as possible for yourself. If you’re not Julia Child, don’t try to do a crazy complicated recipe at first. You can grow into that ;)
I love this one because cooking at home gives me such a good chance to slow down what’s usually a crazy day. I get to bond with my kids, teach them the value of good food and working with their hands, and I usually learn new skills.
There’s evidence that people who cook more of their own meals at home end up eating better quality food and this is correlated with lower excess body fat than those who eat on the go.
Also, cooking at home gives you a better grip on what’s actually going into your food. When we eat out we end up consuming all sorts of weird filler ingredients we aren’t even aware of. Not to mention, who knows what’s in all that mystery meat! And by cooking, you also have a better grasp on your calorie intake. Did you know the average fast food order is up to 1,200 calories total (that’s ½ to ⅔ of your recommended daily intake!!)?
If you’re not convinced this one is important, check out this helpful infographic about the effects of fast food on various body systems!
No matter what you decide to do this year, I hope you’ll consider giving yourself one really simple, really easy healthy guideline to live by. It’ll help you start to build habits with enough flexibility that you don’t break your own motivation the first time you have to deviate from your plan.
Happy (still New) Year!
Tom