For those that eat healthy on a daily basis, how do you stay motivated?

Don’t go back and forth. Once you are on the new diet for a length of time, you get used to it, and it’s easy to stay on it, provided it’s not an extremely weird diet, like requiring a 16-hour fast three times a week and no carbs and no red meat or something like that.

In my experience, if you figure out which cheat foods head you down the path to your old food habits then you have to avoid those foods. You can’t have them in the house at all.

I’ve stayed on healthier diets for months, sometimes years, at a time, but never acheived a permanent new diet, so maybe my opinion shouldn’t count.

I say do changes over time. Maybe at first you eat more vegetables. Then you cut out some cheese. Then use a little less salt. Those are just examples, I don’t know what you need in your diet. Your tastes will change if you stick with it.

For a few years I ate no dairy. I was having a dairy intolerance, it sent me right to the bathroom, but that was the worst of it. When I stopped eating dairy I lost weight, felt better, and my cholesterol went down. I really should do it again. My dairy intolerance eventually got better, and I’ve been eating dairy for years. I started trying to limit it again though. When I was cold turkey I even ordered pizza no cheese, and I love pizza.

Cooking from scratch helps me. I’m lazier about cooking as I’ve aged, and the healthier foods happen to be less work for me from scratch. That just happens to be the case. My salads and veggies have less clean up than pots and pans from the stove top and oven. Meat has more to worry about when preparing. I find it more time consuming, and more to deal with.

I find cheating once a week at a restaurant doesn’t mess me up, but eating out a lot does. Also, cheating at home sometimes takes me completely off track and back to old ways.

My grandma told me in her 40’s she just started picturing bad food as poison, and would leave the table feeling not quite full. She said it took about three years, but finally that smaller portion (fewer calories) became normal. She kept of the initial weight she lost in her 40’s for the rest of her life. She had lost 20 pounds. Her upbringing her mom had encouraged her to be plump. Although, by today’s standards her plump would be average. I’d say she went from a 12 to an 8.

Your question doesn’t make any sense. Your only “motivation” is hunger. A healthy diet is anything that grows out of the ground, and anything that eats what grows out of the ground (in very general terms).

So it’s not clear what you are trying to ask. If you learn a few things about nutrition, you just have no desire for the sugary crap you used to eat. “Motivation” is not a factor at all.

“If it tastes good, then spit it out!” -Jack Lalanne

My wife is a dietitian and she’s all about eating a healthy diet and pushes eating 6 or 8 survings of fruits a vegetables per day, high natural fiber foods, low salt, low sugar and low fats.

I eat whatever she prepares (don’t tell her that I cheat and eat small amounts of goodies when I get a chance). I told her that I suspect that eating all those fruits and vegetables isn’t all that healthy, it’s just that it makes you so full that you don’t want to eat junk food. HA!

I suggest that you just greatly minimize the amount of junk food that you eat and stay on eating a healthy diet (lay off the alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs). Don’t forget to get your regular vigorous exercise.

Good health!

That blasted bathroom scale!

I hadn’t stopped to think about my motivation. I became a vegetarian in the fall of 2017. I was eating mostly that way for a long time before, but I’d never given it a label. I do on rare occasions eat fish. That’s maybe 6 or 7 times a year.

For about a year and half after proclaiming myself vegetarian, I ate extremely low amounts of refined sugar. Many days, none at all. In that time I lost 55 pounds. All the while I was drinking a gallon of whole milk each week, eating all the cheese I wanted, and using lots of real butter every day on my toast and in my cooking. Yes, I consumed large quantities of dairy fat and lost a whole lot of weight. I also eat a lot of nuts.

I now eat sugar when I want. I don’t want a lot of it. My opinion is that Americans have been lied to about sugar and fat. We’ve been told fat is the enemy, yet the French eat 18 lbs. of butter annually compared to Americans who eat only about 3. They aren’t fat like we are. The difference is that we consume great quantities of sugar that they don’t. It’s the sugar that’s making us obese.

All that brings me back to your question. Why do I continue to eat healthy food? Part of the answer lies in the reason I label myself a vegetarian. It’s spiritual. Eating a vegetarian diet keeps me “clean”. There are few words that describe how I feel. “Light” works, too. I feel buoyant in a way.

Junk food doesn’t tempt me. Not at all. I can’t really explain it.

I meditate daily. I know that my meditation has improved since switching to a vegetarian diet. I can feel it clearly. (“Clear” is another good word to describe how I feel.) I think meditation has a lot to do with why it’s so simple for me.

I have no desire to eat Hershey’s or Snickers. None. They don’t appeal to me at all. I do like to eat high-quality chocolate, but I don’t eat much of it.

I’m sure that my attitude has a lot to do with my lack of temptation. I simply don’t worry about it. I eat what I want, and what I want is healthy food.

I love to cook, and I have been a vegetarian for 30 years. I am self motivated. I learned, and am still learning about nutrition, and I love to search for new recipes, using the same staple items that I like, and need.

Meal prepping ahead of time is a really good way for busy people, and for folks who get flummoxed and are likely to grab the nearest donut if they can’t think of what to fix for dinner, or lunch, or breakfast.

Meal planning ahead of time, sounds intimidating at first, because you have to spend one day shopping, and most of an entire day cooking, and packing your meals, but in the long run it can save you time, and then you don’t have to think about what you are going to eat, because your meal, and your snacks are already packed.

The key is to switch up the recipes each time you do a big prep, so that you don’t get bored, but make sure you are using the same types of healthy ingredients.

Here is an example of healthy, make-ahead, food prep:
https://thegirlonbloor.com/meal-prep-busy-people/

Here is another example:
https://thegirlonbloor.com/20-easy-healthy-meal-prep-lunch-ideas-for-work/

@Hawaii_Jake I find your answer very interesting. I know several people who did similar to what you did with similar results. Do you know if your cholesterol numbers are good? I’m thinking about testing the low/no sugar thing. I’m very nervous about eating a lot of fat though.

@JLeslie I haven’t had my cholesterol checked in a few years. Before I lost the weight, the numbers were on the low end of being in the range where they could become a problem. Since I lost weight, the doctor doesn’t seem to care any more.

The only fat I get is from dairy. I drink a glass of whole milk every night with some medicine I take. I do eat butter and use it in cooking. I have done this for decades. So even when I was having my cholesterol checked, it didn’t seem to be a problem. I do love to eat cheese. I have a slice every day at lunch.

Again in my opinion, fat is not as big a deal as Americans believe. Europeans eat much more fat but are thinner than we are. I think the difference is sugar in our diets. When I was limiting my sugar intake, it was extremely low. I would often go for days at a time without eating any refined sugar. I ate fruit. I read somewhere that the body processes naturally occurring sugar differently than refined sugar. I’m sorry not to have the source for that.

I have a friend who’s a vegan chef in LA who swears that refined sugar is poison. He uses none at the restaurant he runs.

While losing weight, if I wanted something sweet, I ate fruit. It always satisfied my sweet tooth.

@Hawaii_Jake If your cholesterol was low even when you were overweight your numbers wouldn’t have much revalence to how my body functions when it comes to fats floating around in my body, but the weight loss is still interesting. I’m only 20 pounds overweight. Actually, 10 would be enough that I would probably look just fine, but 20 would be better, I’d be “thin” at 20 less.

@JLeslie Best of luck to you in your quest.

Cook in advance. I cook lunch and a dinner for the week on Sunday nights.