When starting a new food journey, think in the comparative vs. the superlative. Thinking in the superlative on a daily basis is a recipe for failure.
Years of poor eating choices and poor eating habits cannot be fixed overnight. It takes weeks, months and sometimes years of incremental changes. Looking at your daily food choices and comparing them to the choices you made a month ago is a wise practice. As your diet improves and you compare your new eating habits to your habits of old, you’ll gain a sense of accomplishment.
On the other hand, if you start your journey focusing only on the superlative and compare your daily eating habits with the strictest and most healthy way of eating, you’re doomed to feel like a failure. No one likes feeling like a failure so instead of constantly disappointing yourself because you cannot live up to the unrealistic superlative model, you quit. Preferring to be a quitter than a failure is a practice that too many people adopt.
After quitting, you slowly become cynical in your thoughts. You start to think, “No one can stick with the whole foods, healthy way of eating. It’s too hard and too restrictive.”
Eating is like Walking
A toddler doesn’t go from crawling to running a marathon and neither will you go from fast foods to vegan overnight. Be kind to yourself. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Celebrate your victories. If instead of purchasing an order of large fries from your usual fast food restaurant, you opt to buy organic potatoes, cut them up and cook them at home, you’ve made a huge step in the right direction.
Over time you’ll streamline your eating habits. The more you learn and experiment, the better and healthier food choices you’ll make. I’m finding that eating healthy is a life-long journey, there’s no sprint to the finish line. The better choices I make, the better I feel.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Here’s to comparatively better eating!
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