8 Easy Yet Effective Eating Habits to Fuel Your Fitness Goals
Whether you want to lose weight, maintain, or gain weight, these tips will help you accomplish your goals.
Diets do not work, but certain eating habits can turn into lifestyle changes that fuel your body, and mind, and help you get those gains.
These habits not only help you reach goals, but repair your relationship with food to help with overeating, undereating, or stress-eating.
Keep reading to learn what easy yet effective tips you can do daily to lose weight.
You can even use these tips if you want to gain weight, increase muscle, or just maintain your current weight.
8 Eating Habit Tips to Manage Weight
Here are 8 amazing tips and habits to adopt in your daily life to meet your weight goals, no matter if you want to lose, gain, or maintain those pounds!
1. Eat Mindfully
Eating mindfully can be a great way to fuel your body.
It is the practice of slowing down and truly tasting the food.
Eating mindfully can help you appreciate food as more than just fuel. It can help you enjoy the meal fully, reducing the risk of overeating too.
If we are distracted on our phone, reading something, or watching TV, we might ignore our body when it starts to tell us it’s full!
Sometimes, it might just be a habit to finish everything on the plate when you can just stop and save it for later.
2. Eat Your Veggies First
Eating vegetables, like leafy greens, carrots, etc., can help fill you up on important vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
This in turn will help fill you up, meaning you will probably snack less during the day or even skip dessert!
Plus, the body starts to crave what you eat more of. If you’re used to sugary desserts, you’ll probably form a habit. If you eat vegetables and fruit, heck even a carrot will taste super sweet to you!
3. Make Sure Your Eating Enough Protein
Protein is the type of food that fuels people, fill them, and gives you the energy you need.
Make sure you are eating enough protein with every meal to truly satisfy you.
Protein is incredibly important in repairing muscles after a workout too, so make sure your post-exercise meal is full of healthy protein your body needs to recover.
4. Drink Water Beforehand
Are you hungry or really just thirsty?
Hunger describes a need for energy in the form of food and thirst describes a need for hydration in the form of water. Very different right?
But scientists say that in some cases, people can confuse thirst with hunger.
This is because of some of the cues for hunger and thirst overlap.
Now, don’t think you can just drink water to get over hunger if you are actually hungry, but try to drink a glass of water 30 minutes before eating to:
1. Make sure you aren’t just thirsty and
2. Help you be more likely to eat the right amount!
5. Meal Prep Snacks
I guess this should be called snack prep, not meal prep right?
Snack prepping is very important, as we tend to go for easy options when we are hungry and need a little boost.
This usually makes it easy to grab junk food.
But, to develop better eating habits that are sustainable, start having easy-to-grab healthy snack options available for you!
Prep some healthy trail mix, some plain yogurt and toppings, some cut-up fruit, etc.
You can even bake some healthy sweetened treats like oatmeal bars, almond flour desserts, or even use oat flour or coconut!
Having healthy snacks available makes you more likely to reach for those and not the junk.
6. Keep Track of Portions
Portion control can be exhausting and complex, but it is important to make sure you are eating the right amount.
In some cases, you might be undereating what you should be, or overeating.
Become comfortable with reading the nutrition label, with measuring or weighing out portions.
Soon, you will be able to look at something and know that is the portion size you need!
Plus, looking at portion size reduces the need to restrict any food. Do you want pizza? Eat it! But maybe don’t eat the entire pie in one sitting.
Have a slice now and some later, or tomorrow.
Portion control can help you still enjoy the foods you love eating while maintaining health goals along the way!
7. Slow Down
It takes some time for your brain to recognize it is eating so make sure you slow down to actually taste and enjoy your meal!
This can go hand in hand with mindful eating, as it can help you control portion size naturally, letting you adjust as needed.
8. Follow the 80% Rule
As stated above it takes time for the brain to recognize it is eating.
Because of this, it also takes time for the brain to recognize it is full, which means you might be full, but the brain continues to send signals of hunger to the body.
That is where the 80% rule comes into play (not to be confused with the 80 20 rule!).
Eat until you are 80% full, as this can actually be the point where you are completely full!
The Takeaway
Diets do not work. They are usually extremely restricted and unsustainable.
What does work are lifestyle changes that you can do every day. This means developing new actions until it becomes a habit.
Don’t be afraid to measure out the portions to make sure you are eating enough, and make sure you eat mindfully.
Enjoy your meals, slowly, eating until you are about 80% full, and make sure to have healthy snacks available.
Eat enough protein to be full too, and to recover after any sort of workout!
Remember to drink water to ensure you eat your portion and hydrate properly too!
Health comes from within, so make sure you are giving your body the right nutrients it needs to form strong, stable building blocks.
