1. Drink enough water
You need to drink water. This speeds up metabolism. Blood plasma consists of 92— 95% water, and the fluid helps the circulatory system to cope with its functions. Water supplies the brain with oxygen and glucose, which are necessary for nervous activity. Water, on the other hand, removes metabolic products and toxins from the brain. But its deficiency can cause headaches, fatigue, and problems with the digestive tract.
There is no universal water consumption rate. Focus on two indicators:
Feeling thirsty. If you have it, you should drink it.
The color of urine. It should be colorless or light yellow, otherwise you are not drinking enough.
How to develop a habit
The main life hack: water should always be at hand. Otherwise, you’ll be too lazy to get up every time to drink, and you’ll do it less often than you really want to. Place a bottle of water on your desk and drink it whenever you feel thirsty. Always carry a smaller container with you in your bag and do not forget to fill it.
In addition, there are various apps that allow you to track the amount you drink. Their main drawback is their targets. In an attempt to reach “normal”, you can drink when you don’t feel like it, or rush into yourself late at night to achieve your goal. But if you like numbers and gamification, you can try it.
2. Eat more vegetables and fruits
Plant foods are useful for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer. The fiber they contain helps the digestive tract work better and reduces the risk of noncommunicable diseases.
We have known about the benefits of vegetables and fruits since childhood, but it is not always possible to eat them in sufficient quantities. Moreover, recent studies suggest a norm of 500-800 g per day, which is a lot.
How to develop a habit
It’s the same here as with water: if you want to eat more vegetables, make them more affordable. To make your plan a reality, you’ll have to consider why vegetables are infrequent on your table.
You might love to eat cabbage salad every day, but you’re too lazy to cut it with a knife. Then your choice is a food processor with a shredder. He will move the head of cabbage in seconds, and all that remains is to rinse the bowl and knives with water; you don’t even need a sponge.
Or you buy a vegetable that you don’t like over and over again because you focus on information from the outside, not on your own feelings. Let’s say celery is really healthy, but if you hate it, it will die weight in the vegetable drawer.
Wash the fruits and immediately place them on the table – this way you are more likely to reach for them. Prepare vegetables for consumption as well. Cucumber and carrot sticks, small pieces of cabbage, will be eaten quickly if they are in sight.
Finally, just make sure you have a herbal supplement in every meal you eat. It may be annoying at first, but you will gradually get used to it.
3. Keep a food diary
People tend to be mistaken about the amount they eat. We tend to under-eat even when we know we’re going to be double-checked. Therefore, there is a high probability that you yourself are not aware of your eating habits.
The diary will help you understand how things really are and learn a lot about yourself. For example, you think you’re eating enough vegetables, but in reality you’re limited to two cucumbers a day.
How to develop a habit
Write down what you ate, at what time, and in what quantity, right after or even before the meal, if you can avoid the supplement. Choose a convenient way to capture information: in a paper notebook, a document in the cloud, or an app for counting calories.
Speaking of the latter. If you like accuracy in everything, you can also find out how many calories you consume. The results will be approximate, since it is impossible to say how many nutrients will be absorbed from a particular product. But this information can already be used to correct eating behavior. However, you will have to weigh all the food: when it comes to counting calories, everything is too approximate to estimate the portion size by eye.
4. Eat less sugar
A modern person consumes too much sugar, because it can be found almost everywhere. It is found not only in soda or pastries, but also in ketchup, instant cereals, and sausage.
Excessive consumption of sugar is associated with the incidence of type 2 diabetes, liver failure, tooth decay, obesity and other unpleasant things. So it is necessary to control its amount in the diet.
How to develop a habit
Start small: If you’re thirsty, drink water instead of juice or soda. By giving up these drinks, you will already reduce your sugar intake. Switch to unsweetened tea and coffee.
Limit dessert consumption — let it make sense. Instead, add a portion of complex carbohydrates in the form of cereals to your diet. So giving up sugar will be easier to endure.
Finally, cook more yourself. Producers sin by adding sugar to foods you wouldn’t expect to see it. So you can only resist this by getting up to the stove yourself.
5. Pay attention to the composition and caloric content of food
It is useful to read, especially when it comes to product labels. For example, you can find out that your favorite “healthy” granola bar consists of half sugar and is as caloric as chocolate. Such an entertaining reading will give you a lot of discoveries.
How to develop a habit
It takes time to study labels. So plan your trips to the store so that you have these free minutes. Be sure to eat before shopping, otherwise a rumbling belly can drown out the voice of reason. And of course, don’t bring along fellow travelers who will stand and moan while you’ve been “digging there for so long”.
6. Eat dairy products regularly
One serving of dairy product a day helps to lose weight and reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by 18%. However, it is better to choose sugar-free options: they are healthier.
How to develop a habit
If you find a product that you like, you won’t have trouble developing a habit. But, as a rule, our knowledge of sour milk is limited to kefir and sweet yoghurt. Not everyone likes the first one, the second often contains too much sugar. But we have a choice.
First, try everything that stores offer, such as fermented baked milk, kefir, Snowball, acidobiphilin, jam, and natural yoghurt. You will surely find something you like among them. If there is no product to your taste, try combinations. For example, make a smoothie based on kefir.
Source: https://lifehacker.ru/privychki-v-pitanii-kotorye-v-silax-izmenit-kazhdyj-iz-nas/
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