Healthy Eating Tips: Why Lifestyle Flexibility Is Important to Your Diet

Healthy Eating Tips: Why Lifestyle Flexibility Is Important to Your Diet

Why Lifestyle Flexibility Is Important to Your Diet

Developing flexibility in your lifestyle is a significant factor in diet success. Being open to doing things in a new way, choosing healthy foods that you’re not accustomed to and creating flexibility in your meal times can make a big difference when you’re trying to lose weight.

New Ways of Doing Things
Creating a successful weight loss program and sticking to it often means taking a close look at your eating habits. You may find when you do this that you need to visit your usual grocery store less often and shop more in stores with healthier food options.

Or the change you need to make may be more in the form of introducing exercise and other forms of physical activity. If you don’t have time in your busy schedule for going to the gym daily, flexibility in your lifestyle might mean taking the stairs instead of taking the elevator or getting up 20 minutes earlier each day to work out to an exercise DVD at home.

Flexibility in Food Choices
What many people find after they look closely at their diets is that they tend to eat the same foods over and over again. Sometimes this is due to time constraints. Other times it is simply due to preference. Maybe you really love pizza; it’s inexpensive and easy to grab when you’re in a hurry during lunchtime. Going to a fast food restaurant might also be attractive for the same reasons.

Exercising flexibility in food choices requires consciously choosing to replace the unhealthy foods that you’re used to with healthier options. A chicken salad may not seem as appetizing to some people as a hamburger from a fast food place. But if it’s eaten with a low-calorie dressing, it is often a smarter choice, offering protein and fiber, with fewer calories and not all of the fat and calories of the hamburger. Being flexible means challenging yourself during mealtimes. Taking the time to think of healthier food options and planning ahead will go a long way in helping you to achieve your dieting goals.

Adjustable Meal Times
Experts encourage you to eat three meals a day and to avoid skipping breakfast. This is good advice. However, these meals don’t have to be eaten at the exact same time every day. If lunchtime rolls around and you really are not hungry because you ate a large breakfast, you might have to be flexible and move your lunchtime on that day to a time when you are hungry.

It’s always a good idea to eat only when you’re hungry. Flexibility in this context means changing a routine when necessary. For example, if you sit down to eat dinner with your family in the evening and you realize that you really are not that hungry, be flexible. Eat less. Don’t overstuff yourself with a full meal. You’ll be happy the next day when you wake up hungry and can reward yourself with a delicious breakfast.

For more information call SportCo Rehabilitation Oswego at 630.554.9991 or SportCo Rehabilitation Naperville at 630.922.6500 or find us on the web at www.sportco1.com