how to change eating habits permanently
Today’s blog post is all about how to change eating habits permanently. Because if you’re here, it means you’ve probably done every diet under the sun, only to end up right back where you started looking for the next thing that will help you lose weight.
Here’s the cycle: you’re feeling crappy about how your body looks and feel like losing weight will make you happier. So you hear about a diet your friend did or that you saw on TikTok with some dramatic before and after pictures and you jump in. The first few days and weeks it feels new and novel and exciting. You’re sticking to it and the scale goes down. Woo hoo! But then, you get sick. Or your kid gets sick. Or you have a crisis at work. Or a girls dinner out. Or your kid is in a weekend long sports tournament. And suddenly you can’t stick to it anymore—before you know it that day or weekend has turned into weeks of crappy eating and the scale starts creeping back up.
You’re reading this because you’re sick of that cycle and you want to learn how to change eating habits permanently.
Not for a 30 day challenge or an 8 week program. Forever.
Eating skills fall into 3 big buckets
What you eat
Why you eat
How you eat
In order to learn how to change eating habits permanently, you need to learn skills in all 3 areas. But not all at once! The key is to break it down into small, simple, doable actions.
What you eat
This is where you learn all about nutrition! What foods are efficient proteins, carbs, fiber and fats. How much you need of each at a meal, how often to eat, what foods make you feel full and satisfied, which foods make you feel less so. What’s a starchy veggie? What’s a non starchy veggie? How do I start incorporating more of them? What foods are high in fiber? What’s the role of desserts?
Why you eat
This is where you learn about hunger and fullness. Are you actually hungry or are you just craving a snack? Are you comfortable full or stuffed full? This is also where you develop skills to cope with emotional and stress eating. Learning how to identify when that’s happening and building a toolbox of options so you don’t always have to rely on food to get you through.
How you eat
This all about eating behaviors: putting food on a plate instead of eating out of bag, sitting a table instead of standing in front of the fridge, eating big enough meals so you can go 4-6 hours between meals, putting away screens while eating so you can pay attention to the food/how you’re feeling. Are you eating 3 bigger meals a day or smaller meals and snacks?
There are many ways into this, but choosing one skill from each bucket is often a sustainable, slow and steady approach that will help you learn how to change eating habits permanently:
What you eat: Start incorporating an efficient protein at breakfast and lunch
Why you eat: Pause when your plate is half empty to see how hungry/full you are
How you eat: Focus on going 4-6 hours between meals, which the protein helps you do
Practice those skills for at least a few weeks. As you get more confident with them, you can add on 1-2 more. Then you keep repeating that process until you’ve become proficient at most or all of the skills. And that’s when you realize…you’ve permanently changed your eating habits.
The good news is there’s no deadline or urgency. Some skills will be easier and faster to learn, some will take longer. Just like anything else in life. But because you’re enjoying the process, suddenly you don’t care as much about losing 15 pounds by Memorial Day or for a wedding.
This is how to change eating habits permanently. Without another miserable diet, without guilt, without restriction. These skills will stay with you not just for the next 6 weeks, but for the next 6 months, 6 years and beyond. That’s what permanent change looks like.
Next on your reading list:
My top tips to learn how to stop feeling hungry after eating
The answer to this big question: how often should I eat to lose weight?