Change Your Environment
I've talked before about Dan Buettner and his Blue Zones research www.thewell-nourishedbrain.com/blog/blue-zones. His work is so excellent that I wanted to mention him again.
In his study of the world's longest-lived populations, he discovered that what all these populations have in common is that they live in environments that make the healthy choice the easy choice.
Fresh delicious foods grow wild, walking is the norm, and sleep, relaxation, community involvement, and exercise are a natural part of daily life. This is in stark contrast to our culture, in which the decidedly unhealthy options are the easiest. We drive our cars everywhere, sit at desks all day, and we are bombarded by fast food drive-throughs, racks of processed food at the check-out counters, and junk-filled vending machines.
While we can't change our external cultural influences (at least not yet), we can actively set up our own household environments to make the healthy choice the easy choice. I've talked about one of the primary ways in which I do this for myself through weekly food prep. I always make sure that I have meal components prepped and ready, so that creating a healthy meal is as easy as opening a few containers.
Here are some other ways to ensure that your environment is setting you up for success:
1. If you have an unhealthy temptation food that you have trouble resisting, give it away, throw it out, or at least choose not to buy it again. For me, I can have corn chips, pretzels, and popcorn in the house and I’m not drawn to them, but if there is a potato chip anywhere in the vicinity, I'm in trouble. You know which foods these are for you. They are the ones that call to you at night when you are watching TV or in the afternoon when you are having an energy slump. These temptation foods are ones you might consider removing from your environment altogether.
2. For the remaining unhealthy foods that need to stay in your house, consider placing them out of sight. I have kids and a hungry husband. Given this, we have a junk food drawer. There are items in the junk drawer that aren't terrible, but which aren't the optimal choice either, like store-bought granola, power bars, and salty snacks. However, because it is in the junk drawer and out of my line of vision, I never think about it. If you need to have unhealthy foods in the house, for whatever reason, try to pick items that aren't your favorite and then stash them out of sight.
3. Keep fruit at easy reach. Pick your favorite fresh fruits, make yourself up a beautiful fruit bowl, and keep it where you can see it. If your fruit is ripening too fast on the counter, put your fruit bowl front and center in the fridge. There is science behind this, but you can just take my word for it. If you have lovely options at eye level, you will reach for them first.
4. If you are a soda drinker, buy yourself alternate fizzy drinks (such as bubbly water or kombucha) and place these at eye level in the fridge. Or, get yourself a large water pitcher, fill it with water, add some cucumbers and mint or orange slices, pretend you are in a fancy spa, and leave it in easy reach on your desk or kitchen counter. If you can’t remove your sodas altogether yet, consider stashing them behind the holiday decorations and the folding chairs in the garage. I’m serious about this. Give your brain a minute to catch up as you have to work to get to an unhealthy food.
So, this week, I encourage you to look around your environment and see if there are items that are sabotaging your successful move to healthier eating. Are there ways that you can reshape your surroundings to facilitate your success? Can you look for ways to physically alter your environment to make the healthy choice be the easy choice?
My fruit bowl is more like a fruit counter. This is pretty much how our counter looks year-round, just with a different variety of fruits, depending on what’s in season. Seeing this, and knowing it needs to get used, makes me reach for fruit as my first choice snack. I have very consciously arranged what’s at eye level to make the healthy choice the easy choice. Try it. It really works!
Wishing you a wonderful and healthy week ahead!
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