Most of us seem to be in the no-man’s land between the winter holidays and the New Year. If your eating has been off track, it may seem appealing to let yourself off the hook until January and decide to “worry about it then.” We don’t agree! We think there are actually lots of reasons to start working on healthy eating right this moment!
- Deciding to wait until January to start working on healthy eating doesn’t start your year off on a strong foot. Wouldn’t it be so great if, instead of needing to make major chances in January, you’ve already started making them? You won’t start the new year with a list of things you need to change. Instead, you can start it with a list of things you want to keep doing.
- Why wait to start feeling better? While it’s easy to buy into the notion that you “won’t worry about it” until January, is that really the case? Are you really not worrying about your eating at all? Or, more likely, are you spending time and mental energy not feeling good about your choices? Are you ever regretting eating something or regretting overeating and feeling too full? Worried about how much more weight you may gain and what you’ll see when you next step on the scale? Are you worried about your clothes fitting or your winter jacket zipping? Chances are, you’re spending some negative mental energy thinking about your eating. Instead, channel that energy into working on making healthy choices, and you’ll get nothing but benefits! You’re going to expend the mental energy no matter what, but only one way comes with positive consequences.
- Prove to yourself that you don’t need to wait for some artificial deadline (e.g., I’ll start on Monday, I’ll start next month, I’ll start next year) to start working on healthy eating and feeling good about your choices. Prove to yourself that you can start today, whatever day it is. Chances are that by the time you go to bed tonight, you’ll be feeling at least a little bit better than you may be feeling right now. We’ve found that having just one, two, or three good eating days under one’s belt makes them feel immensely better than feeling off track and out of control of their eating. Feeling good is only a few days away – you can do it, and it’s worth it!