When it comes to your body, you will always be in charge. You are always in control of what goes into your mouth and how much time you carve out to sleep. And yes, I do empathize, because we live in a world of abundance and food choices can seem hard to control. But they don’t have to be.

Grow awareness of what is best for your body and be willing to do the immediate hard thing (avoiding that second glass of wine, or what have you) for the ease later, like enjoying clothes shopping or the likes.

The best way to do this is to actually understand what’s in your food, as well as, improving your thoughts. If you know sticking to a diet isn’t your route, you’ll be glad to know that smaller changes can be way more effective instead. So let’s take a look at some that could help you. 

Knowing What You Need

To start with, you really need to know what your body needs from YOU. You need to slow down and listen to it and your intuition. Often business dulls this inner voice. And understand the benefits each ingredient can have for your body. Or how some things harm you (for myself and many clients, gluten, dairy, eggs, and soy are major problems). So reading up on nutrition and even different supplements, like some of the brands I offer to clients or youngevity 90 for life, is the best place to begin. Because when you know what your body needs, and you read the labels on the foods you buy, you can start to make smarter nutritional choices.

Portion Control

Something that can make a huge difference to how you feel and your waistline, is listening to your hunger and measuring out the right portions. If you are always overeating, then you know that it’s going to lead you to feel sluggish, guilty, and put on weight. So start to control your portions instead and log a few days worth of your caloric intake to learn how much you are eating compared to your needs. I want to emphasize, that the volume of food we eat is important, but we should not become or be calorie-obsessed. Focus more on being calorie aware. 

Nutrient Density

A really quick win is always going for nutrient density. If you want carbs, and you know that fruit has more nutritions that grains, go for that. It’s the same for things like sweet potatoes over chips. Legume-based pasta (like black bean or lentil pasta) over regular pasta. If you choose carefully here, you can make massive improvements without realizing it.

Listening To Your Body

You should also make sure that you’re always listening to your body. Because if you need certain foods or vitamins and you need to stop eating at a certain point, your body will be trying to tell you. So listen to it and always assess your emotions when you want to eat past satiety, or when you have a specific craving for something. You may not need to eat, and you may be wanting food to dull or prolong the feeling. 

When you sense hunger, identify if it’s emotional or physical hunger? Are you craving something specific? Or will you be willing to eat a simple baked white fish and vegetables? Are you even truly hunger? Often we mistake hunger for thirst, and above all, crave eating when we really need more sleep.

Cooking From Scratch

And finally, something that will really start to improve your health is choosing to cook at home (here are some shortcuts). Sure, that premade meal seems easier. And that takeout tastes nice. But both options are not the best when it comes to your nutrition. They can have poorer quality in the nutrients and include excess salt and sugar, which can lead to overeating. But when you’re cooking from scratch, you know exactly what goes into the meal. No MSG, GMOs. No bad ingredients. You are choosing what you are adding into the dish, and you know what you’re feeding yourself.

Small changes can often go a long way.