Momma B: 7 Tips to Help Yourself Stay Committed to Your Healthy Eating Goals

Did you know that the way we store food in our refrigerators can play a role in how healthy we eat?

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Once we figure out what we should be eating and when, then comes the hard part of changing our diet: following through. I have a few out-of-the-box healthy eating tips to help you find success when getting started AND to keep yourself going with your New Year’s Resolution to eat healthier!

Tip #1 – Ready to go snacks

Prep appetizing snacks for yourself to grab and go. Try putting Plain Greek yogurt in a container, then put some nuts or fruit in a sandwich bag and tape it to the cover. This works with hummus cups too! Plan ahead and take some time to cut veggies, put them in a baggy and tape them to the cups. If you don’t like cutting up vegetables buy the ones that are pre-cut.

Tip #2 –  Healthy choices go in the middle

Put your healthy options in the center of your refrigerator. Psychologists have found that people tend to go for items that are in their direct line of vision. Fun fact: this is also true for shelves at the grocery store.  

Tip #3 –  Put your Healthy foods in glass containers

Put your not so healthy snacks/foods in opaque containers and put your healthy snacks in glass bowls so you can see them. This way your healthy snacks will stand out and you are more apt to eat them.  

Tip #4  - Save time to prep

By taking the time to prep you are three times more likely to eat your healthy snacks. Unfortunately, if you wait until you are hungry to clean and cut fruits and vegetables, you are less likely to eat them and you’ll end up grabbing something more convenient, like a candy bar or bag of chips.

Tip #5 – Less is more

Don’t overstuff your fridge! You may get frustrated having to spend time looking for your healthy snacks and end up going to the cupboard for something less fresh and nutritious, like a package of cookies.

Tip #6 – Post your receipt

Put your receipt where you can see it. It will remind you of what you bought and what you spent. We all complain it costs more to eat healthy, so use the fact that you spent extra money to motivate you to eat it.

Tip #7 – Ask that important question

Before you grab that next snack ask yourself  - "Am I actually hungry?" -  If your answer is yes, think about how much you should eat based on when your next meal is. This will help you make choices based on what your body needs.


Momma B: Living With Chronic Pain

For all of you that suffer from chronic pain and argue that what you eat and drink doesn’t make a difference, I’m here to tell you - it does. I know you don’t want to hear that, because I didn’t want to either. For 30 years I wanted to prove that what I ate didn’t make a difference - mostly because I felt that preparing whole foods was just too much work. I was wrong about that too. But thanks to my stubborness, I suffered chronic headaches/migraines and extreme neck and shoulder pain for the majority of my life so far.

I went from doctor to doctor seeking relief. Once I realized that the meds caused me more grief than the migraines did, I started playing around with things on my own. I learned how to decode nutrition labels and had eliminated a lot of headache-triggering ingredients, so I thought I had things figured out. I was eating shredded wheat for breakfast - no artificial preservatives in that. I ate protein bars for lunch - I sit at a desk all day, so I wanted to watch what I ate so I wouldn’t gain weight. 

Planning and preparing does take some time, but when you start to feel better it motivates you to plan and prepare for success.

I had my system down, I was settled into my routine, but the frustrating thing was: none of it was working for me. The daily headaches continued and the migraines got worse. I was at a point where I was taking 7 Aleve a day for my neck and shoulder pain. I was also taking 20 Midol pills a month for headaches because they worked better than Tylenol. I used 15-20 migraine pills a month, and pills for acid reflux to top it all off. Turns out, the acid reflux was caused by the medication I was taking combined with the crappy foods I was eating. And oh yeah, I was anemic too. My body was SCREAMING at me, but I wasn't wise enough to listen. 

I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong until IIN taught me how important whole foods are for our bodies.  Now, I've traded my shredded wheat for Quinoa and my protein bars for vegetables. I've also discovered that preparing whole foods isn’t that difficult. Planning and preparing does take some time, but when you start to feel better it motivates you to plan and prepare for success.

Within four months, eating whole foods had created change!  It’s now been a year and a half since I made drastic changes to my lifestyle and diet. I no longer take Aleve for my neck and shoulders, I've stopped taking Midol, my daily headaches are a thing of the past, and I haven’t had a migraine in the last three months! I've also lost 10lbs and I’m no longer anemic. 

If you suffer daily from chronic pain, I encourage you to start creating a healthy sustainable lifestyle one step at a time. What you eat will either fuel the pain or relieve it. I started in the same place you did. If I can do it, you can too.