9 Ways to Start Eating Healthy Without Much Effort

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The environment directly affects our behavior. But once you tweak it a bit, you may find that it is simple and easy to stick to a proper diet or diet. For example, if you swap a large plate for a smaller one, you start and eat less. Find out the rest of the recommendations in this article.

Small changes in the environment will help you stick to good habits with ease. It does not matter what area of life we are talking about. Below you will find tips to help you start eating healthy. But the principle behind all of these strategies can be applied to develop other good habits or quit bad ones.

1. Eat from small plates

The larger the plate, the larger the serving. Therefore, you will eat more, too. Research by Brian Wansink and a team of psychologists found that if you use a 25 cm plate instead of 30 cm, you will eat 22% less food in a year.

As you read this, you might be thinking, "I can just put less on a large plate." But it’s not that simple. And the illustration below illustrates why. When you eat a small portion from a large plate, you will feel like you have not eaten enough, and therefore you will think that you are not full. But as soon as you change the plate, you will feel full after a meal. The circles in the picture below are the same, but your brain (and stomach) does not perceive them as such.

2. Keep water close at hand

When you're busy, often without thinking, you drink a glass of soda or coffee to quench your thirst. But try always carrying a bottle of plain water with you. For example, put it on your desk at work. When water is always at hand, you will drink it more often than not very healthy drinks.

3. Use tall, narrow glasses instead of short and wide glasses

If you want to drink less alcohol or soda, use tall, narrow glasses. Look at the picture. Which line you think is longer - vertical or horizontal?

In fact, both lines are the same length. But our brains tend to overestimate vertical lines. In other words, it will seem to us that there is more drink in a tall glass than in a wide one. Therefore, you will drink less from a tall, narrow glass. Research confirms that people drink 20% less from a tall glass than from a wide glass.

4. Use plates that contrast strongly with the food

When the color of the plate matches the color of the food, you will automatically impose more on yourself, because it is more difficult for your brain to distinguish a serving from a plate. For this reason, it is preferable to use blue and green plates: they contrast strongly with pasta or potatoes (which means you put less of them), but practically do not contrast with herbs and vegetables (most likely you will put more of them).

5. Store healthy foods in a visible place

For example, place a cup of fruit or nuts on the shelf next to your front door or wherever you go before leaving your home. When you are hungry and in a hurry, you usually grab the first thing that comes to hand. Make it a healthy snack.

6. Store junk food in foil

And healthy products are best stored in transparent packaging. There is some truth in the old saying "Out of sight, out of mind". Often the brain determines what it wants to eat based on what the eyes see. So, keeping unhealthy foods closed and in places you rarely look at will make you less likely to want to eat them.

7. Put healthy food in large containers and packages, and junk food in small ones

Large boxes and containers are constantly catching the eye and take up space in the kitchen. The essence of the advice is simple: you notice the container and, most likely, eat what is in it. Small jars and boxes can hide in the kitchen for several months. Just look at what has been sitting idle in your kitchen for a long time: most likely, it is something in small packages.

And additional advice. If you buy a large box of junk food, pack the contents into small containers and ziplock bags. This will make it easier for you to control the portion size and not eat too much at once.

8. Remember the "half plate" rule

When serving yourself lunch, have vegetables or fruits on one half of the plate. The other half should be occupied by everything else.

9. To buy only healthy food in the store, use the "outer ring" rule

The essence of the strategy is simple: when you come to the supermarket, you do not need to wander aimlessly down the aisles. Walk around the outer perimeter of the store. As a rule, useful food is placed there: fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, dairy products. So you will buy healthy foods, which means you will eat right.

How to change the environment to improve other areas of life

When you try these strategies, you will see that their principle of operation comes down to a simple rule: we add extra steps between ourselves and unwanted behavior, and between ourselves and a good habit, we get rid of intermediate steps.

For example:

• When we store junk food in foil, we add one more step: to see the dish, you have to unfold the foil, see what is in there, and decide whether to eat it or not. When we store healthy foods in transparent packaging, we see what is inside, and immediately go to the last step: decide whether to eat or not.
• Using small plates adds one step between you and the habit of eating a lot. If you want to eat more, you will have to go to the kitchen again and fill your plate.

This approach can be applied to other areas of life as well. If you want to break a habit, increase the number of intermediate steps between you and the unwanted behavior.

Conversely, if you want to develop a healthy habit, reduce the number of steps between it and you. For example, if you want to run in the morning, prepare your shoes and clothes in the evening. That way there will be one step less between you and your workout.