1. Avoid Highly Processed Foods

Coming off of the heels of focusing on real whole foods, we really want to avoid or minimize highly processed foods. Highly processed foods are food-like substances that are made in factories and created to excite your tastebuds but not to nourish your body. Cutting out processed foods is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things to do when you’re starting out on your healthy eating journey.

There are different types of processed foods. For example, oatmeal is a lightly processed food, as is sprouted bread or frozen veggie veggies. BUT these are not the processed foods I would worry about…

The processed foods I am referring to are the HIGHLY processed foods, they aren’t actually food at all and somehow manage to fill the majority of the shelves at the grocery store.  

These are food-like substances that are nutritionally void, meaning they offer no nutritional value and are very unsatisfying when it comes to feeling nourished and satisfied by your meal. These are foods that come in packages and last on shelves for years. 

Some could argue that these food-like products taste good (because they are loaded with salt, sugar, and low-quality oils and are designed to excite your taste buds), but beyond flavor – they bring nothing to the table and are notorious for messing with hormones, blood sugar, and gut health. So simply looking for less processed to more whole food options can take your healthy eating game to a whole new level. If you can’t read or understand ingredients on a label, shelf it!

2. Connect To Your Hunger

Often times when we are trying to eat better, we look to external information to tell us what and when to eat. This is what ends up deterring and ultimately leading to the demise of most beginners’ attempts at starting and maintaining healthy eating habits 🙌🏼

The problem with this is that it creates the false belief that you are unable to trust your body and automatically disconnects us from our natural hunger signals. So the simple practice here is to drop out of your mind, leave the food rules and mental agendas on the table, and drop back into your body☝🏼

A great way to practice dropping back into the body and out of the brain is to ask yourself two simple questions.

Before eating – ask yourself, “Am I hungry?” And when halfway through your meal, pause and ask your body, “Have I had enough?”. 

This can take some practice if you have been eating according to the clock or the external food rules – BUT – anytime we learn something new, we need to grace ourselves the space to practice. So let it feel bumpy as you begin to reconnect to your body and trust that your body is wise enough to know.