You’ve filled your kitchen with healthy foods and planned careful meals to lose weight. But your diet still isn’t working. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, it may be more than your pantry that needs an overhaul. You may also need to learn how to break bad eating habits to get real results.
Not sure where to begin? The first step is to identify the behaviors that are doing the most damage. Scan this list of everyday eating habits that add empty calories, unwanted fat, or added sugar to your diet. See which unhealthy habits look familiar. It’s possible that you’re not even aware that these behaviors have an impact on your waistline.
If you can identify and target critical practices, it becomes easier to seek a solution and see real results on the scale. Once you identify an action to eliminate, you’ll want to swap it out for better behavior. In most cases, the smartest way to change a bad eating habit is to replace it with a healthier practice that is easy and feels good. That way, you’ll want to choose the new habit on a regular basis.
Use the suggestions listed beneath each bad habit as a starting point for change. But modify the solutions to fit your lifestyle. You can even get creative and develop a personalized solution that makes more sense for you.
1. You Call Your Habits “Bad”
The first habit you may want to address is the language you use to describe your eating routines. Just eliminating the word “bad” can be a small step in the right direction.
Elisabetta Politi, MPH, RD, LDN, CDE, is the Nutrition Director at Duke Diet and Fitness Center, a world-renowned weight loss program affiliated with the Duke University Medical Center. She says that attaching judgment to behaviors can impede weight loss.
“Shame is not helpful,” she says, adding that diet professionals are trained to address eating behaviors without judgment.
“There is no right way to eat, and I am not a guru of bad habits. I simply help clients to eat in a way that is healthy and feels good. That way my clients are more likely to sustain their program.”
She goes on to say that whether you are working with a professional or changing unhealthy habits on your own, a slow and gentle approach is best. Target one habit at a time and set a goal to find a simple replacement behavior to boost healthy eating and wellness.
2. You Keep a Snack-Happy Kitchen
Once you’ve set aside judgment, it’s time to bolster your healthy eating routine by creating an environment for success. The best place to start is in the kitchen.
Do you keep high-calorie foods on your kitchen counter? Do you store empty calorie snack foods in eye-level cabinets? Are leftovers, sugary drinks, or fatty sweet treats taking over the center shelves of the refrigerator? These food storage habits may encourage unhealthy, mindless eating, according to studies performed at Cornell University.
3. You Ignore Food Prep Calories
If you love to cook, you’re one step ahead of the pack when it comes to healthy eating or weight loss. When you plan and cook healthy meals at home, it becomes easier to focus on nutritious ingredients and portion control.
But have you ever wondered how many calories you add to your daily diet when you lick the spoon from the peanut butter jar, grab an extra dollop or two of cookie dough, or taste your homemade pesto recipe again…and again…and again? It can add up to hundreds of calories per day that aren’t accounted for in your smart calorie-counting. As a result, you might get frustrated and may even give up on a healthy diet or weight loss plan.
4. You Eat With Distractions
The best way to eat more than you need (and add unwanted pounds to your waistline) is to practice distracted eating. If you usually eat in front of a television or laptop, you are probably a distracted eater. Even eating with books or magazines can take the focus away from your meal.
If you increase enjoyment of your meal, you are more likely to eat slowly, enjoy your food, and recognize signs of hunger and fullness so that you eat the right amount of food. To do so, create a satisfying experience at mealtime.
5. You Sneak Food
According to Politi, sneaking food is an unhealthy habit that many of her clients would like to change. She explains that many times we practice good eating habits when others are around. For example, you might eat well during the day when your spouse is nearby. But when your husband or wife goes to bed, you find yourself nibbling on foods that you typically would avoid. In fact, one study found a link between eating alone and your risk for metabolic syndrome.
You may want to investigate why you feel the need to break away from healthy habits when you are alone. Politi says that some of her clients feel “free to do what they want” when no one is looking. If that sounds familiar, your food plan may be too restrictive, and you may need to make some adjustments.
6. You Fall for Health Halo Foods
Advertising claims on the front of food packages can make foods seem more healthy than they are. For example, a box of cookies might advertise that they are made from all-natural, non-GMO, organic ingredients—but they are still cookies. And those cookies may be very high in unhealthy fat, added sugar, and empty calories.
Some research has shown that we tend to overeat foods that we perceive to be healthy.
7. You Eat Past the Point of Fullness
Our “clean plate” culture teaches us that it is polite to finish all of the food on our plates—even if we are already full. But this practice of good manners is a bad eating habit that may cause us to overeat. And to make matters worse, if you are a fast eater or a distracted eater, you may also find that you eat past the point of fullness.
The best way to avoid overeating is to slow down your eating practice so that you can feel the body sensations as you get full.
Each of these practices gives you more time to recognize the sensation of a full belly so that you stop eating when you’ve had enough.
8. You Underestimate Food Share Calories
If you are a mom who cooks for her kids, it’s likely that you nibble on your kid’s meals from time to time. As a busy parent, this may seem like the most convenient way to feed yourself. But if you make this a regular practice it can become an unhealthy habit. Maintaining a healthy weight can be difficult if you are not mindful of the amount or the quality of food that you consume.
9. You Eat Straight From the Box
How many times have you grabbed a box of cereal and eaten it dry right from the box? When you consume snack crackers or chips, do you scan the serving size then place a single serving in a bowl or on a plate? Or do you plunge your hand into the bag and begin nibbling?
Eating straight from the box or the bag is convenient and it can certainly cut down on your dirty dish count, but this bad habit does nothing good for your waistline. In fact, it can add hundreds of excess calories to your daily total.
10. You Order In Too Often
If you live in a city where food delivery is easy, then you might take advantage of the service on busy nights when you don’t have time to cook. But if you order in too often, it can become a bad habit.
It’s easy to order too much food and overeat as a result. In addition, many of the foods that are available for delivery (think pizza, subs, fast food) are oversized and full of fat and calories.
Your wallet and your waistline will thank you if you can plan ahead and have nutritious meals ready to go when you are too busy to cook.
11. You Drink Your Calories
A flavored latte or frothy cappuccino can be a delicious way to start your day. Unfortunately, a coffee habit may boost your sugar and fat intake more than you realize.
Many of the drinks at Starbucks and other coffee shops provide an entire meal’s worth of calories, fat, and sugar. If you add a super-sized soda at lunchtime and a glass of wine or two at dinner, you may be consuming more calories from drinks than you do from healthy and nutritious food.
One last thing… you should try this 2-minute “after-dinner ritual” that
burns up to 2 pounds of belly fat per day…
“All
this by a 2-minute “after-dinner ritual?” I asked.
I
met an old friend for lunch last month and I was super impressed with how good
she looked.
She
said, “It’s not so much about the “after-dinner ritual”, but more about how it
gives you a regenerative form of deep sleep that is responsible for everything
we need to dramatically increase our fat burning metabolism and improve our
health and appearance.”
Even
though I was skeptical, I’ve been struggling with my weight over the last few
years, so I gave it a shot and watched the same video she did.
Well,
it’s only a couple weeks later and you know what they say about how “you can’t
transform your body overnight”…
They’re
right – it actually took me 16 days to lose 22 pounds.
Now
it’s my girlfriends asking ME what I’M doing differently 💅
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