There are numerous other tools and support you will want to incorporate into your health and wellness journey far beyond the support I can provide. The focus of this lesson is to teach you about tools that will help you throughout your health and wellness journey. The ones I found most helpful are the ones you can rely on and use the easiest.
In this lesson, you will cover
- social support
- nutrition-based apps
- food journal
Social support
How often have you brought something healthy to eat at work for the day, then someone brings in a pizza, and all those thoughts of eating flew out the window? Have you ever seen a delicious-looking dessert at a work party, and your mouth was drooling over a piece? What about at home? Have you ever had the desire to eat healthily, and you walk in the door and find a family member cooking something amazing that isn’t healthy, and you feel like you can splurge on few calories?
It is easy to fall off the healthy eating bandwagon when you have all these temptations around you all the time!
The people who are around you influence your behaviors and choices. And when it comes to gaining and losing weight, nothing else is truer. You have to tell the people around you not to tempt you.
You also need social support from those around you because it can feel lonely if you do it yourself. I am not saying force them to eat healthy all the time. But would I suggest incorporating it as often as you can.
If those around us do not support our food choices to make us healthier, we can feel isolated in our meal plan. There is nothing worse than doing something to better ourselves and feeling lonely about it at the same time.
Lastly, it is vital to have social support for the positivity they bring. Having social support from the ones you love goes a long way to achieving your nutrition-based goals.
Nutrition-based app
Nutrition-based apps are valuable tools for food tracking your nutrition for numerous reasons.
Food tracking
I find food tracking helpful in four ways.
First, food tracking allows you to understand the nutrient density of the food you are consuming. It is essential to know that we get enough nutrients through all foods, drinks, and vitamins.
Second, food tracking also allows you to know how many calories you eat per day. It is crucial to understand the energy that goes into your body each day.
Third, food tracking is critical to understanding your eating habits. Tracking all of the food you intake shows if you stuck to your meal plan. You will want to put in all of your meals that you plan and unplan in and your snacks and slips ups. All this is crucial to understand how many calories you consume.
Lastly, it is beneficial in analyzing your weight loss. All three benefits allow you to be mindful of precisely what we’ve been putting into your body over an extended period and how it has benefited or prevented your weight loss.
Food journal
A food journal benefits as well. It cannot do all of the fancy nutrient-density and calorie counting that a nutrition-based app has but can use it to understand
- your eating habits
- what you eat over time
- how close you’ve stuck to your weight loss plan
One of the top benefits I have found while using a food journal was noting how I feel after eating specific foods. I want to make sure the food I eat makes me feel good and gives me the energy I am looking for throughout the day. But, unfortunately, that isn’t an option in the nutrition-based app I use.
There are many tools that will help you find success with your nutrition goals. It is crucial to your success to let the people you love know you want support with your nutrition and goals. Giving into too many temptations or lacking support can lead to little progress with your goals. Try a few of the tools mentioned and see what works best for you. The goal is to stick with whatever work works best for you