August is National Kids Eat Right month from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Well, since most of you (probably all of you) are not kids anymore, that theme doesn’t apply to you, but we can still take principles from it and apply it to our lives to create intentional wellness into our daily routines.
Do Your Eating Habits Create Intentional Wellness?
Childhood is where we learn our eating habits. So this month may be used for you more as a reflection of when and where you developed your eating habits and how to change some of them if needed. Did your eating habits mainly come from the way your parents or your grandparents taught you? Or did your eating habits develop a little later and come from your high school or college friends and peers?
For me, my eating habits came from my mom‘s curiosity in nutrition. She was always wanting to find the newest food items that were “healthy“. Unfortunately, I grew up in the beginning of the processed food era, so nothing new really was healthy. I do believe, though, that that sparked my interest in learning about food and its effect on the body and how well the body is run from the food we eat. It helped me to intentionally focus on my wellness.
Intentional Wellness Changes to Your Eating and Lifestyle Habits
To better serve my health goals, I have had to do some tweaking over the years to the eating habits I developed as a child. I encourage you to evaluate your eating habits and do your own tweaking to find health and feel better in your body. The first places I recommend to start evaluating are listed below:
Intentional Wellness Focus #1: Build Your Plate with Balance in Mind
We all build a plate when we dish up, but most of us build our plates with preference in mind. Instead of making very drastic changes to your diet all at once, start with the way you build your plate. Have balance in mind instead of preference. What I mean by this is, instead of filling up on large amounts of mashed potatoes and just a little salad, fill half your plate with salad and a quarter with mashed potatoes. Veggies should fill up half of your plate. Starches, like mashed potatoes, should be about a quarter of your plate. And protein, like meat, should fill the last quarter of your plate. When you balance your meals like this, you still get the foods you love, but you get a big bang for your buck with the amount of veggies you eat.
Intentional Wellness Focus #2: Drink Water Instead of Sugary Drinks
I often hear complaints from my clients of headaches, fatigue, muscle weakness and joint pains. One of the first things I look for in my client’s diet when I hear these complaints is sugary drinks. Sugary drinks not only raise your blood sugar and spike your insulin causing you to store fat, but they also create dehydration. Dehydration can lead to these unpleasant symptoms. If this sounds familiar to you, my best advice is to cut them out cold turkey.
Intentional Wellness Focus #3: Move More Often
New research has come out concerning movement and exercise. It has long been recommended that people are physically active for at least 30-45 minutes every day. That is still the recommendation, but now researchers are finding that shorter bursts of activity spread throughout the day is better than one longer workout. For those that work fulltime, this is way easier to fit in! Create a daily routine of having three or four 10-15 minute mini-workouts. You can do this by starting your morning with an easy rebounder session, taking a walk after lunch, lifting weights after work and taking another walk after supper. When it is broken up throughout the day, it may feel much more manageable to you.
Let’s Connect!
I’d love to hear how you developed your eating habits and what tweaks you’ve had to make over the years to be more intentional with your wellness. Respond with your responses. If you need some help making changes, reach out here! Or if you know you’re ready to commit and want to see if your insurance will cover our visits, you can schedule an appointment with me here. And as always, please share this article with anyone you may feel will benefit!
