It’s often not a lack of education that stands in between me and good health
Everyone in the comments being surprisingly unsympathetic here. It definitely can be hard to start eating healthier if you haven’t been for a long time. It’s a mental battle every day for tons of people who are trying to better themselves, you aren’t alone.
As another person said, these comments are very unsympathetic and off putting. When someone is asking for help- they shouldn’t be scolded or talked down to.
A great place to start is a small place. Find one substitute for a favorite meal and start there. Instead of a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast- eat a whole grain bread with hummus. Something you like is something you’ll continue.
A huge help for me was downloading a nutrition tracker. I use cronometer (just the free version). I never counted calories (though it has that feature), but rather- I started keep track of specific nutrients obtained through food instead of taking supplements. I found myself reaching for things like black beans or spinach to meet those daily amounts and inherently ate less junk because I was already full.
A big challenge is making the first right choice because each good choice combats those junk cravings.
And remember, every choice is another opportunity to make the right choice. If you ate poorly for breakfast and lunch, don’t come home and junk out for dinner because the “day was already ruined.” There’s no such thing as a ruined day. Every time you make the right choice you’ve done a good thing.
Last of all- you have the knowledge so also examine your mood and surroundings when you find yourself reaching for junk. Maybe you are sorting through something emotional, or maybe it’s as simple as grabbing a take-along snack before you head out the door for the day.
Wishing you much success my friend.
Junk food is addictive. Processed food is made to suck you back in with sugar and salt and fat. The adjustment for me has been slow but very rewarding.
The best method in my experience has been to challenge myself to make as many things as I can from whole (single ingredient) foods. If it’s too challenging to make, I buy the healthiest version possible. I challenge myself not to eat fast food or ready meals. I honestly got addicted to the amount of money we save on a whole food diet and now buying junk makes me cringe, unless it’s for a special occasion.
Finding non-junk food you actually like is crucial. I thought I hated eating healthy, but I just hadn’t found snacks and recipes I enjoy. I’m also lazy as f and kept trying to cook complicated stuff. Dumb things down for yourself
We live in a society of abundance currently for most people in Western and developing countries. We’re addicted to good tasting food - it’s as simple as that. And by good tasting food, I mean processed, refined foods that have additives and are produced in such a way to increase their addictiveness and mouth feel/taste pleasure they give. They are also insanely cheap to produce and buy compared to whole food and meats.
You’re basically still a caveman, who thinks fat, salt, and sugar are very hard to come by, and whenver you find them you have to eat all you can, while you can. That’s programmed into every cell in our body, and that’s not an easy thing to override.
It’s hard to cook and prepare for one person. Buying all the ingredients gets expensive. Then if what you made sucks, you have a lot of the ingredients left but don’t want to make another mediocre meal… wasting the rest and wasting money.
You also get addicted to eating for pleasure instead of purpose. When I repeatedly eat healthy I find I crave the feeling of health over craving the taste of my food. In order to get there, I have to eat healthy for a period and make my body remember how good “good” can feel. If I’m busy/stressed/tired I’m too distracted and impulsive to wait that long. Most people get that way.
It can be done. It just sucks.
When I was living alone I could just change my environment and not buy junk food and get healthy food. Now that things are different I fell back into not eating healthy because my family buys things that tempt me and I can’t convince them otherwise. So the temptation is much worse. But I was finally able to eat healthy again recently.
The best small step I took towards eating healthy is eating slower. Once I calmed down and took my time it became easier to get full with less. Then I stopped associating food with watching some show or movie. It felt not productive at first but it was making me want to eat whenever I wanted to watch entertainment which made me eat more. The next thing was figuring out am I hungry or bored, and chewing gum to make my mouth busy instead of eating something out of boredom. Then the next step was to take deep breaths whenever I had the urge to eat something unhealthy. I also got a mini fridge in the garage and stocked it with my own healthy food just to help my craving, I know that’s not feasible for everybody but I didn’t want to be tempted by opening the family fridge, and I don’t open the pantry to not be tempted.
I read a lot of books on what foods to eat and what not to eat and tried a few different diets and for me specifically the thing that works is one meal a day protein and vegetable meal. It’s not gonna work for everybody but after all I tried this is what is working. I’m exercising and seeing progress, but sometimes I fail and I don’t beat myself up for it so I don’t spiral. I use apps like streaks to keep me accountable and there’s plenty more I could do. If anything from what I started doing is resonating hope that helps.
Well what I found is I was cooking at my home and saving some money for a month or so and one day I was tired and didn’t cook and did went out for a blood test and ate 2 burgers cheap easy and cost $6 tasted good!
I didn’t cook that day ordered from outside was okayish.
For me cooking takes an hour- rice, salad and chicken or beef and no ups and down in energy level and easy to use washroom especially with adequate water.
Eating from outside it’s a pain that means straining in toilet, diarrhea, constipation depending up on food and who the hell knows what they add.
When I cook at home using minimal oil, spices and 2L of water life seems easy but, we need to get into that routine.
Because evolution.
All our brain needs us to do, is not starve until we’ve procreated and raised our children.
For that, it’s enough to be able to detect and enjoy high energy food, so we no what’s worth going for (in the wild).
Proper micronutrition to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible is something you do just for yourself to enjoy your body as long as you can and much longer than necessary for humanity to go forth.
I think understanding how to cook foods you like and then putting the time and effort into that is important.
I’ve found a great place to start is what dishes do I like to make and can make well stay home and how do I make modifications to be healthier.
For example, using a lean meat, less oil or butter, having a large side of veg, less carbs. Sometimes I’l use less of a sauce
you are addicted to sugar
because you eat lots of sugar and carbs your gut bacteria is set up for it. Eating healthy takes time to get truly used too.
EVERYTHING that is quick to buy has sugar or processed carbs in it. If you’re not making it at home, a salad os your only “on the go” healthy food.
everyone around you is addicted to sugar and they push it onto you.
healthy food doesn’t taste as good
Theoretically, it’s not. Once a person has some education, it should be easy. Right?
A big part of it is that people aren’t used to it. They are not used to cooking with certain ingredients because it was never used in their family when they were growing up.
Their taste buds are used to ultra processed foods and sugary stuff (I won’t use the word “addiction” because it’s not).
Often people use food as cooperative mechanism. That’s a whole different story.
Laziness and time. It’s easier to order food/buy instant meals than cook them from the scratch. But what are the priorities when people “don’t have time” to cook?
They often think eating healthy is expensive. All you see on social networks when following healthy life style influencera is avocado, everything fresh and organic… They don’t realise normal cheap piece fruit or veggies works perfectly fine too.
When people decide to eat heatly, they want to do everything at once. Unfortunately, that won’t work in most cases. They need to make small changes, get used to them and keep up with them forever. Not for a month.
And maybe it’s not your case, but education plays a huge role in this. Most of people are not educated in nutrition and diet. That’s why there’s so many fad diets and that’s why so many people fall for them. Learning about nutrition and how to eat vs magical diet that makes you healthy in a few weeks? Sign me up!
It can also be too much “education” of people telling you the wrong things. Sometimes the best intended advice gives people diabetes that damages their body systems and organs
Some doctors say to start with JERFJust Eat Real Food
A good way to start is a rice cooker with a steamer basket. Throw in some brown rice/buckwheat/quinoa/etc., put whatever frozen veggies you want in the basket, 20 minutes later you’re set. Avoid sauces, use spices and herbs, throw a can of tuna on there, avocado, dice a tomato, cilantro, black beans, salsa.. get creative. Use sharp cheese like feta so you don’t need to use as much to add flavor. Put it on a bed of spinach.. I try to have lots of things stacked in small Mason jars in the fridge so I can do a little of this/a little of that and not get bored of what I eat.
I often see people mention: Our parents generation steamed and boiled the shit out of all the veggies to the point of them becoming undesirable mushy blobs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/zzpccj/yes_god
Our brains are hardwired to crave sugars and fatty foods through millions of years of evolution. Our bodies / brains use glucose as energy and want to use glucose as energy so that we’re not using fat and muscle. That’s why sugars/fats are so appealing, we are literally rewarded via dopamine release in our brains as we eat this stuff. But then, like any drug, the more we eat it, the more that’s needed to maintain the high we get. The ease and availability of sugary/fatty foods makes it so that we’re literally fighting our bodies/brains to make the right choices for itself, I.e. unprocessed raw vegetables, fruits, meats, etc. it’s freakin hard to make these choices. What I will say is it gets easier the more you understand why and the more you make good choices for yourself. If interested, look up Dr. Robert Lustig, Andrew Huberman
Generally speaking, no, it’s not hard.
But can be hard if you are addicted to it or if there’s an emotional component attached to it.
Speaking from experience, I used to eat junk food almost every day. I was too tired after work to cook healthy food so just ordered take away. And then due to all the bad stuff on those type of foods, I’d get tired and just wanted to sleep and had a great lack of energy.
Of course this has consequences to your health. I’m not obese but certainly overweight. My lack of exercise was also a big factor to feel like trash every single day.
Now, I’ve been slowly changing my eating habits and trying to step away from the addiction. I like to cook healthy food and love the different colors of my veggies.
If you like to read, I recommend the book Atomic Habits from James Clear. Without spoiling too much, make the habit of eating healthy easy and accessible and ordering junk food hard and difficult to achieve.
Example: Buy some vegetables that you like, check some healthy recipes or YouTube videos that help you make a simple but delicious meal. Don’t feel like cooking? Try to find foods that you know are healthy.
Do you have apps like Uber Eats on your phone? Delete them. If possible, delete the accounts of those services. Phone numbers to junk food stores? Delete them. Make it as hard as possible to order junk food.
Still too difficult? Every day, try to have a healthy meal. Just one. Start it slowly and give small increments.
Like you, I’ve been struggling with junk food and when I think about the money I spent on that, I just want to cry. Not to mention the anxiety issues that I’ve been facing. But I’m fighting through it and if I can do it, you certainly can as well.
Good luck.
Eating healthy is not hard .
You think so , because eating unhealthy is ridiculously easy. (Cheap, fast, enjoyable, addictive)
So eating healthy is much harder, although if you respect yourself enough it’s not hard.
It’s about changing habits and changing one’s habits are a difficult task. I, for example, haven’t eaten fast food in 2 years. EDIT. Not eating fast food was difficult because for years I had got meals on my way home for me, my ex, and her kids. When I became single I was still in that habit and took some time to get back in my normal routine. Giving yourself a break once or twice a week is crucial. Pick a meal or two to let yourself go each week.
A suggestion for anyone curious is figuring out making your own seasonings that have little or no sugar and salt. There are also ways to help make one feel fuller longer. I make a blend of 50% brown rice, 25% quinoa and 25% wild rice and mix that with riced cauliflower. Separately I package and freeze chicken breast or if I can get young green jackfruit in water I use that instead of meat some days. I cook the jackfruit slowly in beef or chicken bone broth to add a little flavor. I buy frozen veggies because they are cheap and already frozen. I mix the rice mixture some veggies and either chicken breast or jackfruit for my lunch everyday at work.
If I add jackfruit I also freeze some beans in the mix when preparing my meal in the morning. Then when I’m heating them up I season with my powder mix and some bone broth. I have a thermos I preheat and put my warm food in that for my lunch at work.
I spend a whole day making 2 meals for each day of the month and freezing them the next day.
For breakfast I make steel cut oats at night on Sunday and have enough for 3 days. I use steel cut oats because they are a better chew and I feel more full after eating them. To sweeten it up I use strawberries and a few chunks of dragonfruit to color it up.
Because people make a restricted meal plan, Eat what you like but the right way. Count your macros and fit your favorite foods into those numbers so you don’t feel it’s like a diet and think of it as a lifestyle. Best thing to learn is get a smart educated coach that can make you plan around your favorites to show you how to start
I usually buy stuff in larger portions, with a lower cost per kilo. I dont buy precooked food, only fresh or canned stuff. Fruit and vegetables are usually cheaper at the “fruterias” which are fruit and vegetable stores that are ran usually by immigrants. I never buy anything because i crave it. I have a weekly menu, and I buy only the ingredients i need to cook those meals.
I buy only “marcas blancas”, which are the brands from the supermarket chain itself.
I would say that my grocery shopping habits are quite common here, some people may spend double the money i do in groceries (gluten free, precooked, known brands and ocasional treats are the main reasons).
As reference, prices of products are 0,80 euros per 1 kg of potatos, 1,20 euros per 1 kg of rice. 1 euro per 1kg of apples. 0,9 euros per 1 large can of tomatos. 7 euros per 1kg of chicken breasts, 5,5 euros per 1kg of ground beef. 4 euros 1 liter of olive oil. And prices were between 10 and 30% lower a year ago.
I know the answer. It’s because our way of life and culture makes it virtually impossible (assuming in the US). Let’s say I want a burrito. Where can you get one that would be reasonably healthy? Nowhere. There’s no cuisine that’s normal. Everything is stuffed with too much crap or slathered in oil or butter. Excess is the rule not the exception. Unfortunately this makes it very difficult to just be normal and healthy
Eating is a part of our everyday life. Habits are very difficult to break, especially if we’ve had them since childhood. You have to train your body and mind (and adjust your schedule and learn some new skills) to eat healthy.
I eat mostly healthy foods, but in December I was doing lots of overtime and some frozen perogis and breaded chicken made it onto the menu quite a bit when I was tired at the end of the day. I don’t have a car, and the weather was awful for weeks, so it was very difficult to get to the grocery store after work. I was tired and just wanted to eat dinner and go to sleep.
But back to my regular schedule, I make soups once or twice a week (lentil is my favorite). I buy lots of veggies and nuts and pack them for work, so I don’t have other options. I do some prepping when I have extra time/energy, like marinating meats or chopping veggies, so cooking is faster and easier when I do get around to it. I always have fruit around.
People eat like all the time, so if you aren’t prepared with the right foods, you’ll eat something else. It takes real effort every day.
In a nut shell, corporate food has perfected the key to make food irresistible to us.
Studies are indicating that once we start eating that food the bad bacteria in our gut sends messages to our brain that “that’s the food we want and need!”. And then the bad gut bacteria continues to increase.
That is one of the biggest reasons that we need good pre-biotics and pro-biotics to get our gut biomes back on track.
I think you have to evaluate your reasons for eating healthy. What are your goals? Why are you trying to do it? I think that for a lot of people, they focus on the goal instead of the reason.
For me, it wasn’t enough that I was trying to lose weight- one of my goals. I had to change my entire mindset. I started by recognizing that the food that I was eating was good for me, and over time started unconsciously praising myself for doing something so good for me. I started feeling really good. I started noticing how bad I would feel after eating a lot of junk. I began thinking about how much the food I was eating was linked to my health. My mindset shift from my goal to my reasons, and now I want to eat healthy. It makes me feel good. It’s a form of self care.
As for the how, I didn’t stop eating junk food. I still do. It’s absolutely delicious. But I did start eating less of it, less frequently. Somehow, that made it even tastier, and Ive noticed that there are diminished returns if I binge it. As for incorporating healthy food, I spoke to myself about how I needed to be realistic about the fact that it will take more time to cook, and how I need to learn to enjoy cooking. I started trying to learn about nutrition a little bit every day. I still dont know everything, but I know a decent amount. And then I tried to find healthy recipes that I liked, or at least wouldnt dislike. At first it was hard and I had to try new things, but I found that I should have been giving my taste buds more of a chance. Now, I’ve started unconsciously wanting and craving the healthy meals that I love.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is think about the reason that will drive you towards healthy food in your highs and lows. Try to find a way to enjoy the cooking process. Be open to trying new foods, and don’t label healthy foods as something you “don’t like, etc” before you even try them. With the right seasoning and cooking method (ex I hate steamed asparagus but LOVE it when it’s covered in spices and roasted till slightly crispy) you may surprise yourself.
This is what it works for me.
Avoid buying junk food, sweets and processed food at the supermarket. Don’t keep them in your house at all.
Then, start breakfast, lunch and dinner with two big glasses of water (I add a bit of fresh lemon juice to my water to avoid the need of fruitjuice, beer, wine, whatever).
After that, the first thing you should eat when you sit are vegetables. A full dish of fresh or cooked vegetables (not potatoes and slow down with carrots). Do this EVERY SINGLE MEAL to shut down your hungry.
After that, with half of your stomach full of water and vegetables, eat other things and try to prefer proteins more than pasta, pizza, cheese or bread.
Now I’m also doing intermitted fasting 8-16 from 01pm to 09pm, taking only some coffee at breakfast. The path to lose weight is long and hard but I’m a father of two and they are my motivations: they deserve a healthy father for a lot of years!
Modern food industry doesnt want you to eat healthy, they want you to buy their products.
Human anatomy is a survival marvel and humans have many evolutionary tools which enabled us to survive hunger and poison.
Salt is an essential chemistry compound for cells, because life evolved from the oceans and we always need it, and its rare inland, so there are special sensors on the tongue because blood sodium cloride levels have to reside within a very narrow range. Salt was rare to find inland until a few centuries ago. Nowadays its extremely cheap and avaiable.
Sweet comes from the perception of easily digestible carboidrates, which are also quite rare in nature. You can mostly find real sweetness from fruits, which themselves are evolutionaly reproduction tools of plants to make animals eat their fruits and take the seeds contained insade to others places in their feces. Current fruits are themselves geneticaly engineered by us through hundreds of years. Real sweetness is rare in nature and so feeling it is quite valuable because carboidrates have a lot of calories (4 kcal/gram). Again, refined sugar nowadays is extremely cheap and avaiable and its added to everything.
Fatness also contains extreme levels of calories because they are themselves calories body reserves, and they have 10 kcal/gram. Just as sugar and salt, they are extremely avaiable and cheap right now and the chemical industry can produce artificial fats which are diferent from those extracted from animals or plants.
So, what did we end up with? Industrial food with EXTREME levels of salt, sugar and fat. Common examples are chocolate, ice cream, carbonated drinks. The industries are competing not only with natural and organic food, but also against themselves. So they add as many enticing things as they can.
But there is a problem: sensory neurons adapt to stimulation, so the more you stimulate them the less you feel. The first bite is usually the sweetest and as time goes on the taste diminishes. That not only happens during a meal but also throught your life. So if you are used to industrialized food you are bound to feel much less the taste from organic and natural food. And that is why you are bound to find natural food so bland and boring - your sensors are used to extreme stimulation due to an extreme level of ingredients.
Humans survived to endure one of its highest and most common dangers which was famine. The lack of food. That meant that we ate when food was abundant so that we could survive winter and dificult times. That means that humans are inately bound to enjoy and eat as much as we can as long as food was avaiable. And one of the sources of stress was famine. So when we feel stress from work or relationships the body thinks we are facing adversity, so we get inclined to eat because it may increase our survival chances.
So we actually are all drug addicts pursuing abnormal levels of salt, sugar and fat, which are only so avaiable due to technological advances, making natural food boring due to neurological adaptation due to abundancy, and to.make things even worst, natural food sometimes is more expensive and cooking takes time.
So you see, humans not only are enticed to pursue savorfull food, but acting healthy is harder and more expensive. That is the perfect trap.
The modern human is a slave and victim of his own sucess. Our major problems come from excess. Excess confort makes us sedentary, because we dont need to exercise anymore. Excess salt gives us hypertension. Excess sugar makes us diabetic. Excess confort, sugar, salt and fat makes us obese. 60 % of the adult american population is either obese or overweight. If people from the past ate our food they would get uncontrolable orgams due to sensory overload from how intense our food is.
The ones who dont become fat either have the willpower or right genetics to stay thin. Nowadays we judge peoples sucess not by their ability to gather food and stay healthy due to avoiding starvation, but by those that manage to stay healthy and fit by AVOIDING over eating.
So you see why its hard. Its because most of us are drug addicts to salt, sugar, fat and exercise. I recomend you stay away from industrial food for a few days. You will notice that your taste will improve a lot.and you will be able to enjoy natural food and find soda way too sweet. Just stoping using carboidrated drinks will improve your life a lot.
Probably trying to change too much at once. Start with small changes. Turn those small changes into habits. Then add in another small change and turn that into a habit, and so on.
Having a plan for progression can be helpful too. Ie. For the first two weeks I’m going to “X” then in weeks 3 and 4 I’m going to add in “Y” and “Z”.
Those things could be something like: drinking a gallon of water each day, reducing the amount of sugar consumed, making protein a focus in each meal to improve satiety, going for 10+ minute walks after each meal, etc…
Pick one or two “tweaks” to what you’re currently doing, add them in, cement them, and repeat.
Because the government and powers that be don’t want you to be healthy. That’s why Junk food is everywhere packed with highly processed and highly addictive ingredients. GMO food is everywhere and is sprayed with a ton of chemicals. 90% of “food” in the supermarket didn’t even exist 100 years ago.
Well I can only speak for my own experience so here’s why it’s hard for ME, perhaps you have the same obstacles:
I get home around 5-6 every day. I go to bed at 8 so if I have 2-3 hours a day to spend on myself how am I supposed to do everything I’m “supposed” to do?
And that’s me, with no kids - god bless you all who are parents.
So is it any wonder why I instead just pick up a burrito on my drive home or order doordash?
My approach to solving these: I’m trying to be better about buying in bulk so I have healthy food at hand. I may sign up for the veggie delivery box again so the food comes to me. And trying to do bulk meals in my crock pot.
Hope it works 😕🤞