If you’re like most people, you probably made some kind of silent promise to yourself about doing things better in 2020, and you can’t be blamed for feeling optimistic about a new decade. The idea of a clean slate and a nice round number to start being your ‘best self’ is quite alluring – however, we humans notoriously give up on these ‘new years’ resolutions’ once we encounter even a slither of resistance.
Eating healthier is a vague, but well-intentioned new years’ resolution that is informed by evidence we are already well-aware of. It’s no secret that there’s a connection between an unhealthy diet and chronic illness/early death.
Since we all know that eating healthier is always a worthwhile objective, let’s go through some clever hacks you can use to start eating healthier in 2020 and beyond.
1. Make eating healthy more convenient
Let’s face it – one of the big reasons we don’t eat as healthy as we should is because preparing fresh meals from raw ingredients takes more time than heating something up in the microwave or opening up your food delivery app of choice. Some of us cringe at recipe instructions that dare to ask us to dice vegetables, while others are simply inept when it comes to organising a kitchen.
A great way to make cooking healthy meals at home more convenient is to subscribe to a service that delivers fresh ingredients and easy recipes to your door, cutting out all the hassle of grocery shopping and meal planning. Lots of people have started using services like this to become better home cooks, and prepare more elaborate dishes they might not have considered trying before, such as Bengal chicken curry or sesame-crusted tofu.
2. Involve friends & family in your journey
The good thing about planning to eat healthier in 2020 and beyond is that you’re not the only person who has that desire, and it’s likely you already have close friends and family who would be keen to cooperate with you so you can both benefit from motivating each other. Partnering with someone you know and trust to work towards a goal, especially a self-improvement goal, always makes things easier as you will be able to police one-another and ensure you don’t cheat on your diet or fall off the horse in some other way.
You can even make it more fun and rewarding by ‘gamifying’ the process. For example, you could have a friendly rivalry with your partner on who can achieve a certain goal faster, and this will help motivate you both since reaching your goal is now about more than its utility to your health – it’s about beating a rival.
Friendly competition is one of the best motivators, don’t hesitate to leverage it if it helps you adopt healthier eating habits. You can even involve larger groups of people, perhaps inviting your loved ones over for a classic Australian barbeque that has some healthy twists based on your new dietary choices.
3. Be a smart shopper
The grocery aisle is, unsurprisingly, where most of our weekly food choices are made and is therefore one of the most important places to be vigilant with your new diet, as it’s easy to succumb to flashy advertising and bargain prices. This fact is taken advantage of by supermarket chains who discount junk foods more often than healthier alternatives and place them strategically around checkouts to capitalise on the ‘impulse buy’.
There are two effective strategies you can use to avoid spending money on unhealthy indulgences in the supermarket. The first – don’t go shopping on an empty stomach, and the second – plan what you are going to buy ahead of time.
Obviously, if you enter a grocery store when you are hungry, then the sight and smells of the supermarket are going to affect your more potently. The hungrier you are, the less patient you will be when it comes to food preparation, and this means you will be far more likely to reach for that microwaveable dinner, rather than bag some fresh vegetables or head to the deli for a slice of meat to cook later.
Having a pre-conceived notion of what you are going to eat that evening, and what ingredients you need to prepare, will do wonders for keeping you on track in the grocery store. You will spend far less time (and money) inside the supermarket when you go in with an itemised list of only the things you know you need to make dinner.
There you have it, 3 easy hacks you can use to make switching to healthy eating that little bit less of a hassle, so you can start the new decade looking and feeling great!
