This final week, I’m challenging you to adjust & fine tune your healthy meal pattern.
Let’s fine tune our healthy meals machine. That will mean different things to different people: either 1) adjusting if you’re not doing one of the earlier weeks’ meals consistently, or 2) adjusting what you eat and drink outside of these three meals.
I suggest picking one or two of these areas this week to focus on, depending on what’s relevant to you:
- 1-2 of the meals from the previous weeks that you’re not consistent on yet (especially the hearty salad)
- Replacing a junk-food snack with a healthier snack (fruit, carrots and hummus, nuts and dried fruit, edamame)
- Replacing a calorie-filled drink (sweet coffee drink, soda, sweetened tea, sports or energy drink, juices, alcohol) with water or hot tea (unsweetened or very lightly sweetened)
- Cut out sugary foods and/or those made from white flour
- Change from white rice to brown rice
- Change from fried food to baked or stir-fried
- Cut out processed meats (sausage, bacon, canned meats, deli meats)
- Remove less healthy stuff you might be putting in one of the 3 meals (fried, sugary, cheese, creamy dressing, croutons or bacon in salads)
- Stop eating packaged food
- Stop snacking after 8pm (if you’re like me and tend to munch on foods at night even if you’re not that hungry)
- Adjust your portion sizes if you’re eating big portions or consistently going back for seconds
- Drink more water
- Cook at home
Obviously you don’t need to do all of these, but I believe that changing some of these areas would make most of our diets healthier. If you’re already doing all of these, then great! But most of us have a few of these areas we could adjust.
The idea is not to get to perfection — it’s to make adjustments each week (including beyond this month) that will continue to make us healthier. Less of the unhealthy stuff, more of the nutritious stuff. More nutrients, less empty calories. More fiber, less processed stuff. Over time, our bodies will become fine-tuned machines, radiantly healthy.
Pick 1-2 of the changes above, commit to doing them this week, and set reminders!