Healthy Habits for life – How to stick to healthy eating habits

Healthy habits for life – Many people start their health journey and find themselves jumping on board every fad diet, seeing different nutritionists, but never ever finding true happiness. This constant searching is for external satisfaction is often because they have failed to fix what is happening internally. You could get to your goal and still be unhappy, and find yourself still searching for something else. Is this healthy? In this podcast we will talk about some of the many things necessary to get on the right path to health, and in this article we will focus on just one aspect, loving yourself.

What is your relationship with food?

Are you someone that thinks about food all the time? Do you feel guilty when you eat something that you know you shouldn’t have eaten?

Do you talk about food all the time or do you binge eat? All of these are signs that you have an unhealthy relationships with food. In terms of binge eating there could be many reasons why you binge eat.

Identifying your trigger if your a binge eater

First of all you need to keep a food diary of the foods your eating. You need to record what time you eat, what you eat, why you ate it, how it made you feel both emotionally and physically (did you feel guilty, did you feel bloated)

This food diary will allow you to identify what triggered you to binge eat. Did you have a bad day at work and decide to eat a pizza? Is your relationship with your partner on the rocks, and therefore your using food to cope?

What to do when you identify your triggers

Once you have identified your triggers you will have to sit down and work out alternative coping methods for your triggers. So instead of turning to food you may use meditation, deep breathing, listening to relaxing music.

Sometimes our issue with food can be even deeper and may fuel your relationship for years.For example, it could be a death within the family, you may have been bullied at school, you may have issues with your self- esteem.

These negative self esteem issues can affect the relationships you form with friends, you could find yourself with partners who are wrong for you or have a fear of being alone.

Why you should love yourself

You will never have healthy habits for life until you are able to overcome the emotional turmoil and start to release some of the negative feelings towards food, weight and yourself.

For whatever the reason is you need to first realize that you have a problem and then start to heal yourself and let go of some of these negative feelings, and learn to love yourself.

Tips to learn to love yourself:

Forgive yourself – Get a diary or journal and list all the things you feel you have done wrong in your life and forgive yourself for them.

Have gratitude for what you have – Write down everything in your life that is good at the moment, list all of your best achievements, and be thankful for ALL of them.

What admirable qualities do you have – List all of the things that you think people may admire about you. Think of what your best friends may say about you if they had to write a personal reference. You must try and look at this from a third persons point of view as it is difficult to just compliment yourself.

These are important steps to take to building a better relationship with yourself and to begin a journey of life long health. To find out more about how to build a better relationship with food and to help you build healthy habits for life download my weight loss mind map here.

About Tanja Shaw

Tanja started her career as a personal trainer to help people lead a healthier life. Like most personal trainers Tanja felt that the solution to helping people lose weight is a strict diet, strict exercise regime and being disciplined. However, over time she discovered a new way to help people. The anti-diet pphilosophythat focuses on building a healthy relationship with yourself. A system based on identifying your problems, working through your problems and becoming happen with yourself and body image.