As a clinical nutritionist, I hear this comment a lot: I know what I have to do. I know I need to eat healthy foods. Why don’t I do it? My son knows what to eat, yet he doesn’t! My friend knows what she has to eat, but she keeps eating foods she should avoid! All I need is a meal plan to follow! A few weeks later, the meal plan is out of the window, and the individual is back to the old days of eating undesirable foods.

One of the main problems is that we are not consciously aware of what foods can do to us. Non-desirable foods are easy to swallow. It takes time to change eating habits. We are also rushing all the time and have less and less time to savor the food mindfully.

To change what we eat, we need to create a new habit. How can we create a new pattern if we don’t take the first step? Engaging in a new eating behavior every day helps establish a new habit. It doesn’t need to be a radical change. It can be something simple like eating fruit every day. Make the fruit visible at home. So that you can first remember it’s there. Are you too busy? Carry your banana with you so that when you take a break to eat, you don’t go to a store and buy something you are trying to avoid.