Turning Nutrition Guidelines Into Simple Daily Habits
Most of us have a basic idea of what healthy eating looks like. The challenge is knowing what to focus on day to day without feeling overwhelmed or like we have to change everything at once.
This month we can use the updated Food Pyramid along with the SMART Goals Framework from last month’s newsletter to put the updates into practice. The updated food pyramid isn’t meant to be a diet or strict set of rules to follow, its a framework to help build balanced meals over time. By applying the SMART Framework we can turn broad guidelines into specific actions you can follow through on.
The Food Pyramid Simplified
At its core the new Food Pyramid emphasizes the choosing of a protein selection first and then determining what fruits and/ or vegetables, healthy fats and/ or whole food carbohydrates will accompany that protein choice. Eating whole foods, incorporating healthy fats, limiting highly processed foods, added sugars, and eating a minimum of 2 fruit and 3 vegetable servings per day are also discussed. All of changes don’t need to be applied all at once. An example of implementing SMART goals would look like: “I want to eat more vegetables”
Specific-Add a non starchy vegetable to my meals
Measurable-At two meals per day
Achievable-Fresh, Frozen or pre-cut
Relevant- Supports Digestion, energy levels, and body composition
Time bound-For the next four weeks
At the end of the month set aside time to reflect on how you did, ask yourself what got in the way of your goals? What would make this habit easier to repeat? We don’t need a flawless diet to make progress. We need simple repeatable habits.
