Marching Towards Health: Simple Steps to a Stronger You

By Sonia Salfity,
Desperate Dieter

It takes courage to move forward even when we’re not sure what’s ahead. It’s easier to stay on the couch reaching for whatever comfort food we can get our hands on.

"These attempts at mindlessly switching our brains off may seem harmless, but they offer temporary relief at best. It ultimately marches us to defeat instead of victory and that’s a high price to pay for a few moments of pleasure.

Like any good soldier marching towards victory, we must arm ourselves way before the battle. By doing this we’ll have increased our chances for victory when we find ourselves on the front lines.

Here are some simple tricks; they’re not new and I guarantee you’ve heard them before. But sometimes we have to go back to basic training in exchange for the gimmicks we’ve adopted along the way.

1.Eating your greens first. Sneak them into salads, soups or smoothies. Whatever method fits your lifestyle.

There is no excuse to skimp on life-saving nutrition! The vitamins and minerals packed in produce are not just essential for cancer prevention, but are also great for our hair and skin."

"We can train our taste buds to enjoy our greens regardless of our likes and dislikes. Think of it as boot camp for our taste buds. Eventually they’ll get accustomed to these healthier foods enough so that you’ll actually start craving them!

With enough practice your gut bacteria will change so that you produce more of the ones that crave the veggies instead of the sugary foods"

"2. Slowing down your eating by thoroughly chewing your food. One trick is to put your fork down after every bite. Another trick is to enjoy conversations with the people set down to share your meal.

Even offering a thanksgiving prayer before your meal will centre and slow down your mind enough to breathe before devouring your food! Do whatever you need to do to stop rushing

3. Making it a rule never to eat standing up as you will be more aware of what you’re eating when you force yourself to sit down. Think of meal time as sacred time to sit down and be mindful of all your blessings

4. Eating enough protein. I cannot stress this enough.

I know from experience that on the nights that I feel famished they happen to be the days I haven’t consumed enough lean protein. Use the following calculator to give you an idea of your protein needs

based on your height, weight and sex Protein Calculator.

5. Grocery shopping with a list! Don’t forget to stick to it! If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t go in the cart unless, of course, you forgot to put a basic item like eggs!

While on the subject of eggs, I’ve noticed that the weeks I’ve included them in my breakfast are the weeks that I do better in terms of feeling fuller.

Eggs for breakfast go a long way. I love combining them with half an avocado as they make a great team!

6. Choosing fresh and whole foods instead of processed or ‘Diet Foods’ which are often laden with artificial ingredients and sometimes even more calories than the original version. Avoid falling for the advertising gimmicks.

Simply trust what your grandma used to tell you: processed food will never come even close to fresh foods in terms of health. Despite the inconvenience of having to prepare meals from scratch, the health benefits far outweigh the negative

7. You grow stronger when you stretch yourself outside your comfort zone. With that in mind challenge yourself to do things when you don’t believe you can do them or when you simply don’t feel like it.

You don’t know what you can accomplish till you try. It takes both intentionality and effort to accomplish things worth doing so go for it.

8. Making it fun: Perhaps the most important rule is this one. If your health journey isn’t something you enjoy then you’ll surely give up.

We are striving to work to achieve long term goals by setting shorter ones we can attain to keep us focused on the bigger mission.

Setting your mind to visualise what you want to achieve so you can picture what it looks like. If you can picture it, you can achieve it.

Here’s to marching in the right direction one day at a time, one meal at a time!.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine