Nutrition

Tips and advice on managing eating habits and controlling food intake.

Hunger test. The easiest way to realize if it’s really time to eat is to drink water. If you still want to eat after the water, it’s worth eating. If, however, you feel fine after water, you should not eat.

The right portion. A good portion for your body is about the size of your fist. So eat a portion the size of your fist first, and then assess whether you should eat more.

Starvation

I recommend practicing intermittent fasting (4-6 hours) and one day fasting. Intermittent fasting can be done like this:

• A light dinner, and the next meal at about 1 or 2 pm the next day.

A one-day fast can be done like this:

• A light dinner, and the next meal is a light supper at 6-7 pm the next day.

You can drink water during the fasting process. And in the very first times, you can do not full fasting, that is, a little bit of dried fruit, for example.

Eat with your other hand. Practicing eating with your other hand will help you control yourself and not overeat.

Eat with chopsticks.

Eat in silence.The practice of eating in silence is very useful at the initial stage to learn how to eat properly. Eating in silence will make it easier for you to follow all the rules of proper eating.

Do an unloading day. Give yourself permission one day a week to eat whatever you want. That way, it will be easier for you to transition your diet to a proper diet.

Reward yourself. This practice will make it easier for you to change your eating habits initially. Reward yourself with something “unhealthy” for eating healthy all day. For example: sweets, only in the evening and not very much, for eating well all day.

Buy groceries satiated. It’s no secret that when you buy groceries hungry, you gain more than you need and tend to impulsively buy unhealthy foods. So try to shop satiated.

Start your morning with a glass of plain, clean water. The stomach will wake up and there will be a good appetite.

Cut back on sugar and salt. Everything’s good in moderation. Both sugar and salt are necessary for our bodies and moderately beneficial. But the diet of modern man has too much sugar and salt. Start gradually reducing the amounts of sugar and salt in your diet. For example, salt your food less, add less sugar to your tea, eat two pieces of chocolate instead of six, and so on. Over time, your receptors will get used to it and you’ll start to notice how over-salted and over-sweetened many foods are. Moreover, sugar is much more harmful than salt and the situation is funny with it. Before, people didn’t know how harmful smoking was, you could smoke everywhere. Then the harm of smoking became known to everyone and now there are even warnings on cigarette packs. It’s exactly the same with sugar. In the past, people didn’t know how harmful it was and so they added it to everything to make it taste better. But now we know about the harms of sugar, but out of habit we treat it normally, even though it’s time to write warnings on sugar packets.

Don’t fall for diets. As properly diets don’t work, or give temporary results because you abruptly adopt an unaccustomed lifestyle. That’s why I recommend not using diets and gradually, slowly changing your eating habits.

Keep useful things in plain sight. We often feel like snacking and we do it with foods that are in plain sight. And in plain sight, there are usually some not-so-healthy foods lying around. So put snack foods (dried fruits, nuts, breads, fruits) in a prominent place. In the refrigerator, do the same. Put the most useful things in the most visible and closest place.

Have a healthy snack. Often it is during snack time that we eat unhealthy foods. Start snacking on healthy foods (dried fruit, nuts, breads, fruit). It’s better for the snack to be “flavorless”. That is, it is better that the product you are going to eat is tasteless or has a weak flavor. Then you’ll fill your stomach with food, but not a lot.

Delicious doesn’t mean healthy and vice versa. As a general rule, anything that tastes very good = not healthy. What is the most delicious food? Of course fast food, they add so many flavor enhancers, spices and additives. What’s the most unpalatable food? Stewed vegetables, celery, etc. Unfortunately this is true, the healthier the product, the more it doesn’t taste good to us. Bitter foods are generally the healthiest. But when you start changing your eating habits, your receptors will start to clear out the chemical flavors and you’ll be able to enjoy even foods that don’t taste good to you now. The tastier the food, the bigger and harder the “withdrawals” will be.

The first course affects the entire meal. Experiments have found that the first meal influences all of our subsequent decisions. That is, if you started your dinner with a fried cutlet, you’ll be inclined to eat something unhealthy next. Conversely, once you’ve eaten the healthy stuff, you’ll be inclined to continue eating that way. So start tomorrow/lunch/dinner with a wholesome product. Try to always eat the healthy first, then the unhealthy. This way you’ll fill your stomach with healthy things first and most likely you won’t want to eat unhealthy things, or you’ll eat very little of them.

Just because it’s allowed doesn’t mean you can. In the mid-20th century, pharmacies were quietly selling cocaine, morphine, lsd. But their sale was subsequently restricted, or banned. It’s exactly the same with the food market right now. Just because a product is sold doesn’t mean it’s okay to consume it. So be careful, read the composition and test it on yourself.

Make your decision in the morning. We tend to break our eating patterns and habitual diets if we don’t have a meal plan. To have fewer breakdowns, make yourself a weekly menu and decide in the morning what you’re going to eat today. If you know what to eat for dinner, it will make it less likely that you’ll eat a burger on the way home.

Imagine the consequences. Very often after eating junk food we regret it. My stomach feels heavy and I have no energy. So before you eat anything unhealthy, imagine the consequences. What happens if you eat this product.

Juice packets are not juices. Unfortunately, what we are used to calling fruit juice is not really juice. It’s more like a fruit-based drink. There is nothing healthy in such juices and they have a lot of added sugar. So you better get yourself a juicer and make your own fruit juices.

The more fire, the less benefit. This simple rule will help you change your diet. During heat treatment, 99% of the microbes are killed and with them the beneficial substances. So try to either process fruits and vegetables a little bit or eat them raw.

The shorter the expiration date, the better. The healthier the product, the shorter its shelf life. So try to eat less foods that have a shelf life of more than 3 months.

Train your willpower. Food is the ultimate willpower exerciser. Eating habits are closely tied to animal levels, which is why they are so hard to change. So slowly train your willpower specifically on healthy eating.

Be in the right environment. It’s hard to change your eating habits when your friends or loved ones eat differently. So try to surround yourself with people who share your diet and will help you stay on track.

If you bought it, you’ll eat it. We are so organized that if we bought something, we want to use it, otherwise we feel sorry for the lost money. So if you buy something unhealthy you’re likely to eat it, and it’s just as likely to be healthy. Buy healthy foods and you’re more likely to definitely eat them so you don’t throw them away.

One Piece Rule. This rule will help you cut down on your intake of sweets for example. Make it a rule to eat one piece of chocolate/one candy bar a day. That way you’ll appreciate the sweet or unhealthy stuff more and can gradually cut down on it.

If you have a sweet tooth, eat fruit, not candy and cheesy marmalade.