Healthy Habits Start With A Healthy Mindset
February Newsletter
Eating Well Starts With Your Mindset
If you’re struggling to maintain healthy eating habits, a fad diet might sound tempting. While some diets provide quick results, many lack balance and fail to promote long-lasting change. As part of an “Eat Well Challenge,” the New York Times published helpful tips for creating sustainable healthy habits.
Rather than banning your favorite snacks and obsessively counting calories, reshaping the way you think about food can be a great place to start. According to Dr. Judson Brewer, an addiction psychiatrist, mindfulness exercises during meals encourage you to “slow down and think about how and why you’re eating.” Brewer says that practicing this can remind the brain that many junk foods or unhealthy snacks “[don’t] actually make you feel as good as you remembered.”
So, how do we begin to eat mindfully? Brewer suggests monitoring your eating patterns so that you can become aware of the following:
- Which eating habit do you wish to change most? Identify why you want to make this change and focus on this particular task.
- Discover what triggers your behavior. If you are prone to overeat when you are stressed, your first step might be learning to manage stress in other ways.
- Consider how you feel after your meals. Did you end up feeling too full? Did you feel guilty later? Did the food give you energy? Focusing on how you feel after eating can help encourage a balanced diet and healthy change.
Best Practices For A Heart-Healthy Life
Give your heart some love this month as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute celebrates American Heart Month, dedicated to educating people on lifestyle practices that help prevent heart disease.
According to the NHLBI, there are several steps you can take to care for your heart. These heart-healthy practices can lower your risk for various conditions, including the common preventable illness, coronary heart disease.
- Know your risk factors such as a family history
- Routinely monitor your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. You can learn more about these levels by watching this video from the Mayo Clinic.
- Eat a nutritious diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, while limiting your intake of saturated fats and sugars
- Don’t smoke (and consider quitting if you do)
- Manage a healthy weight
- Exercise regularly
- Lower your stress levels
- Practice healthy sleep habits