Master Eating for Fat Loss - Making Healthy Eating Easy

How to Lose Fat When You Find Healthy Eating Hard - Part II

Time to get back to this subject.... "what makes eating healthy so hard"

After asking a group of women interested in fat loss, why healthy eating was so hard, I got many really good answers. The first one was, "I don't associate 'good food' with healthy food." Find out how to conquer that issue in the post How to Lose Fat When You Find Eating Healthy Hard to Do .

A different women interested in fat loss responded that healthy eating was so hard to do because every life event- happy or sad- was centered around food. So today's post addresses the concern with our tradition of celebrating the events in our lives- happy or sad- with food! Here's my response below.

This is indeed true in our country and I can totally understand the struggle to eat healthy when you are challenged with some type of "event" on at least a weekly basis.And yes it's so true that usually "celebration food" isn't the healthiest. I wish I had some profound remedy for this dilemna but I really don't. I only have one word of advice that I heard/read somewhwere and I'm not exactly sure who deserves the credit for this quote but here it goes, "be the change you want to see in the world". We can't change how others celebrate (at least not overnight) but we can change how WE celebrate.

Here are a few tips to overcome the "celebration food" obstacles that stand boldly on your path to the body you want:

1)Bring food to share to the celebrations.
This takes some effort but bring healthy alternatives to the celebration. At the very least, there's something there that you can eat to support your goals and you just may turn someone else you love onto healthy eating. You may even take the time to discover how to make a healthier version of a family favorite.

2) Start another celebration tradition.
I had a client who was from a very large Italian family. She told me that they ALWAYS overindulged in rich food during the holiday BUT they always played a really intense game of touch football a few hours after the meal. Your family may not be into football but dare to add something (preferably movement) to the events besides eating. This can help burn up some extra calories and provide a distraction so that you don't catch yourself in endless food fests.

3) Realize and accept that celebrating doesn't mean getting off of your healthy eating plan... even if everyone else is doing it.This may be a hard one to do but I will personally admit that some of my best body transformation success came when I realized that I had to eat for MY goals and health regardless of what everyone else was doing. It's always easy to believe that 'IF ONLY' my husband, boyfriend, family, mom, etc would join me in eating healthy, I'd be so much more successful but that's simply not true... it's an excuse, an out, an obstacle or barrier that you are putting in your own way. You will be most successful when you are eating healthy, exercising, etc for YOURSELF- to produce the changes in YOU that YOU desire. Decide what you want for yourself. Follow through and then watch those closest to you be inspired.