By Sara
Utilizing dietary lifestyle changes can be the most impactful tool in your toolbox during your journey to vibrant health. In fact, I’d go so far as to say: Changing your diet is the most powerful lifestyle change you can make. Why do I believe this at my core? Getting quality sleep is something you do once each day. Exercise is typically done in a chunk all at one time. Most of us eat at least 3 times each and every day. We usually have a snack or two in there as well. This gives us 3-5 opportunities each day to choose to eat something that will have a powerful and positive impact on our health.
Dietary effects on health:
Diet has an effect on so much in our lives. From our weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. Also on our blood sugars, risk for diabetes, and our risk for developing certain cancers and heart disease. Then there are vision loss, stroke, heart attack, kidney failure. Don’t forget loss of sensation in extremities, Alzheimer’s, depression. Finally, constipation, bloating, energy levels, immune function… I’m sure you see the pattern, the list just goes on and on.
“It’s about progress, not perfection. Don’t compare yourself to others. Simply work towards healthier choices today than you made yesterday.”
No matter if you are healthy and just want to stay that way, or if you’ve had a health scare and want to improve the quality of the foods you consume, there is so much room for improvement in the average person’s dietary pattern. The benefits include an immense capability for positive change in each individual’s health. So now that you know, are you willing to do the scary thing and commit to a diet change?
If so, know that it’s about progress, not perfection. Don’t compare yourself to others. Simply work towards healthier choices today than you made yesterday. Dietary lifestyle change is all about consistency.
Using goal setting when making a dietary lifestyle change:
When starting to make dietary lifestyle changes, goals can help you gain momentum. The best way to make any change is to set a goal for your big change. Then break it up into smaller, more easily attainable chunks. You can then knock these out and build momentum towards the larger goal.
Commit yourself to change by discussing the change you want to make with anyone who will hold you accountable. This could be a loved one, a coach or friend, or even a co-worker. Then take mighty action to make it happen every single day. Once a change is a comfortable part of your life, you can add another habit. Then just rinse and repeat with each new habit.
My experience in getting started:
When I made the change to becoming vegan, I knew giving up dairy (especially cheese) was going to be hardest for me. So I got rid of this from my diet first. I had been without dairy in my diet for two and a half months before I took the plunge to full-on veganism. Initially I ate a lot of processed vegan food as a crutch, until I became more accustomed to eating more whole foods.
I hope you don’t make the same mistake I did, since processed food (whether it’s vegan or not) is just not as healthy as whole plant foods are. Fact is, there is an overwhelming body of scientific literature which reveals a whole food plant based diet to be the best diet for peak health. Even better, there are no side effects and this actually benefits the entire body.
Some tips for utilizing dietary lifestyle changes:
- Eat a wide variety of plant foods and try to eat the rainbow each day. Try new foods and see if you enjoy foods you’ve not yet tried before.
- Plant based foods are high in fiber, while being mostly low in calories (Nuts, seeds, and avocados are the exception here, and should be limited- they are at the top of the WFPB food pyramid).
- Legumes and dark leafy greens make up the next layer of the WFPB food pyramid and are great sources of protein and nutrients.
- Whole grains (which are as close to unprocessed as possible) are next on the food pyramid.
- Plant foods also have a great variety of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, fruits and veggies are the base of the WFPB food pyramid.
- Eating fiber in the form of a WFPB diet improves the health of your gut bacteria. The result is a stronger immune system, reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and maintaining a healthy weight.
- This all combines so that you can eat enough to feel full. The result? No more dieting and feeling hungry and deprived!
So now I hope you can see why I believe that dietary lifestyle change is the biggest factor within our lifestyle that we can control. After all, we not only inherit the genetics from our family that will make certain health conditions a larger problem, but we also take with us the eating habits we grew up with, and the foods and recipes we were raised eating. Initiate dietary changes as one of the first lifestyle changes you make, and then keep adding, you have so much incentive– once you try it you’ll see how good it feels!
Well friend, are you ready to take the plunge to a whole food, plant based (WFPB) diet? I hope that you try it out, and I hope to ease your transition so that you have an easier time than I did. I want to take out the points of struggle so that you get results quicker than I did. Best of luck!
If you are interested overall in lifestyle changes and what these are, please see our related post here! And please comment below if you have any questions. I’d love to hear from you!
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