Control Your Diet to Control Your Life
When you are in control of your diet, the rest of your life feels more controllable.
What comes first? Your life feeling out of control, so your eating becomes out of control? Or your eating gets out of control and then your life feels out of control? It may not matter. I have found when I can get my food under control, I have more control over the other areas of my life, and that’s the easier path for me to take.
Recently, my life felt like it was in chaos. We have more people living under my roof than we have space for. There seems to be piles of stuff with no place to put it. My laundry basket is literally running over. I haven’t had time to clean bathrooms. I avoid checking my bank balance, because knowing would require me to pay attention. And to make it all worse, whenever I have some extra time to straighten things or tackle projects, I chose grazing on food instead and ate anything and everything to postpone work I wasn’t feeling up to doing. Food helped me to avoid doing things I didn’t have the energy to tackle.
Have you ever noticed the opposite though? When you feel in control of your food, there seems to be a sense of control in the rest of your life. Choosing projects over cookies, cleaning over stuffing your face, being productive over popcorn on the couch, it feels good! It feels like you can tackle anything.
Instead of letting your cravings guide your day, choose to master the indulgences. Choose to be productive, avoid 10,000 return visits to the pantry, and you will end the day with the sense of accomplishment, control, and order rather than defeat and chaos.
I want to offer 10 ways to feel in control of your diet, and challenge you to observe how the rest of your life feels more orderly as well. You feel a sense of control that absolutely permeates into other areas. Keeping your house clean, staying on top of projects, getting your to-do list done, and feeling great about the order in your life. Once you stop fixating on your next meal, you can actually get things done in life!
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10 Ways to Feel in Control Of your Diet
- Track your food. Knowing exactly what you are eating and keeping track with an app like My Fitness Pal can start you on a path of clarity and control. The more meticulous you can be with your tracking, and the sooner it becomes a habit, the more control you will feel over your day. This is true even if you are tracking indulgences and treats. It could mean the difference between eating 1 cookie and a dozen.
- Delay your first meal of the day. This is something that has been working tremendously for me! When I needed to tackle a project, pay bills, clean something, or have a tough conversation, my default coping is to eat. I will eat, and then eat some more and eat more after that, just to delay the inevitable. But, If I do the hard thing first, and eat after, I feel like I’ve mastered that thing!
- Stay busy with enjoyable activities. Sometimes this even means working if you love your work. But usually it means finding a hobby you enjoy more than eating! If you don’t have a hobby you like more than eating, it’s time to find one.
- Stop snacking. I’ve said this so many times. Snacking can make you feel out of control. Especially if you are an on-the-go snacker, or mindless eater. Read more about how snacking gets in the way of your weight loss here.
- Have an ending to your meals. When you give permission for your meal time to literally never end, you never feel satisfied. Have your meals at the table, with a clear ending to it, and you’ll feel in control of the meal, rather than the meal controlling you. Here’s more on Meal Ending ideas or how to stop eating after a meal ends.
- Drink up! Water can fill you up without weighing you down. You will likely even have more energy when drinking more water and therefore, more productive.
- Avoid visual temptations! Whether you are scrolling pinterest for desserts, or walking by a bakery, both trigger it’s time to eat! Avoiding this can keep you away from so many temptations!
What are some ways you’ve been able to feel in control of your diet?
