Change is difficult, for everyone. But once you do something consistently every day for 3 consecutive weeks, science shows we are much more likely to stick to that habit.
I like to do gradual habit forming, so that I’m more likely to stick to the change I’m implementing. What does “gradual habit forming” mean? That means you start with baby steps doing something new for either a small period of time or cadence (1-3x/week), and then build upon that once you’re more comfortable. Gradually moving towards a goal will often lead to a more permanent lifestyle change.
These 5 simple steps helped me shift from a SAD (standard American diet) to my current vegan diet. And with continued effort, I’m working towards a goal of a WFPB lifestyle.
Step 1 - Food Swap
Select those foods you know are not good for you and swap them out for a healthier replacement. I did 1 food swap per week for six months and felt amazing and lost weight. That doesn’t mean you’ll never eat chocolate or bacon & eggs again. But if you focus on food swapping your biggest daily problem foods, you can quickly eradicate nasty habits and improve your health.
Here’s some great examples:
Swap chips for granola bars
Swap chocolates for fruit
Swap ground beef for ground turkey
Swap bacon and eggs for oatmeal & fruit
Swap coffee for herbal tea
Swap red meats for lean white meats
Step 2 - Portion Size Reduction
It’s shocking how big the US portion sizes are compared to most of the world. Eating a slightly smaller portion size than normal, buy just 1/4, will cut down your caloric intake and make a huge difference to your bottom line (calories in/out). There's also portion plates or containers on the market that help you setup the correct portion sizes (for people who need some extra help). You could also weigh food or count calories to help you understand how much food your actually eating. You’d be surprised how some people are pouring on 2-3,000 calories on just 1 plate! That's an entire daily amount of food for some people. I counted calories for 1 month, using an app, and after that I’m able to roughly gauge about how many calories I’m taking in (since I tend to rotate the same meals often).
Step 3 - Elimination
Once you have some food swaps and better portion sizes under your belt, you may be ready to advance to food eliminations. Flat out eliminating foods from your diet completely can be difficult at first. But after some time you’ll find you don’t even miss them and the health benefits can be enormous.
People can sincerely benefit from eliminating oils, sugar, dairy, processed carbs and/or meat (or red meat at a minimum).
The first time I did an elimination diet was going Paleo (back in 2012). The Paleo diet consists of meat, some fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds ONLY. NO Dairy, NO Carbs (potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, etc) & NO Sugar. At first, eliminating carbs was brutal. I even bought “paleo bread” made from coconut flour and alternative pastas. But low and behold, after some time not only did I not miss those foods as much, but my digestion improved ten fold. I also lost about 20lbs in 6 months (without really trying and no exercise). All I did was eliminate those types of foods.
I went vegetarian in May 2019 and vegan Dec 2019. Eliminating meat and dairy from my diet was easy for me because I had phased out milk by 2015 and my meat consumption was only 2-3x per week at that point. I gradually ate less and less over years until I just threw in the towel. Like I said, I like to do gradual changes. What ever elimination makes sense for your life, start out slow and chip away at your goals. Eventually, you'll make it!
Step 4 - Buy Organic
A tiny percent of poison, is STILL POISON. I’d rather not ingest ANY of it myself, or feed it to my family. Saving 45 cents on mildly poisoned food versus the more expensive organic alternative is choosing money over health. I choose health and encourage everyone to do the same. It’s been scientifically proven the negative health effects of pesticides include dermatological, gastrointestinal, neurological, carcinogenic, respiratory, reproductive, and endocrine effects.
Here’s some scientific studies and articles to help shed some light on the dangers of pesticides and why we should move towards organic (our natural state of food, only up until the last 60 years).
Step 5 - Create lifestyle (permanent) changes
The biggest change you can make is to adopt new habits permanetnly, so they become part of your new lifestyle. That’s the real end game here, to eat cleaner for the rest of your life. Unfortunatly, today’s society is fixated on “trying things out” or going on fad diets for a certain period of time. Although that can be helpful in losing weight or getting people healthy in the short term, if you go back to old habits then what’s the point. I sometimes laugh at these YouTube videos where people “try X for 2 weeks” to give you a review of how they felt. Honestly, in 2 weeks your body is barley adjusting to the changes you’re making. I’m much more interested in learning about peoples progress, experiences and changes over a 90 day, 6 month or 1 year period of time. That’s a true commitment to yourself and allowing your body the time it needs to adjust. I implore people to try implementing new habits in a slow, gradual way so they will not only fall in love with the changes they’re making, but carve out new incredible lifestyle changes for themselves. Best of luck to you in your health goals!
Hi Teeny, love it