What Does Your Environment Look Like?

Losing weight or getting healthier is really a result of several things. It isn’t something you can do overnight, and it isn’t something you can do without changing.

A lot of the results you see come from the changes you make. Maybe you are more active, and you’re exercising consistently now. That is one area where you’ve changed and you are probably seeing results if that is the case.

Maybe you learned to listen to your hunger and fullness cues and that led you to eat better. Maybe you learned to eat slower so you can recognize that you are full and stop eating sooner.

These are all awesome habit changes that can help you lose weight or get healthier.

Another area to focus on is your environment.

Your environment at home, at work, or at school.

Some of that may be outside your control, so don’t even worry about that if it is.

But, what can you control?

Do you do any of the grocery shopping or the cooking in your household?

If you do, what is one thing right now you can think of to improve your environment?

Buy more fruits and vegetables?

Move them to a more accessible area?

What about if you consider skipping on the chips or cookies this trip to the grocery store?

These are all ways you can improve your environment.

There was a study done about self-control, and it found a common theme with people who reported they had great self-control. The people who felt like they had great self-control reported rarely having to use self-control. The people who felt like they were bad at self-control reported they needed to have self-control often. So if I never had to use self-control, and you had to use it all the time, we would feel very differently about our self-control skills.

What does this tell us?

That one of the keys to having self-control around food is not even having the trouble foods in your environment.

Don’t make yourself rely on the self-control, just don’t even give it a chance.

This is one way you can improve your environment, keep healthy foods around, keep them visible and readily acceptable, and keep the snack foods and cakes out of sight and out of mind.

Buy snack sizes, and consider smaller individual serving bags instead of large bags.

HERE IS WHAT IM NOT SAYING:

I’m not saying don’t enjoy those foods from time to time. Yesterday I had a pack of skittles and two days before that I had movie theater popcorn. But, I don’t keep foods like that around often and I don’t eat them every single day.

Sometimes there can be a fine line between obsessing over food and trying to get healthier.

I’m confident you know the difference, and you have the self-control to enjoy these foods without going overboard.

P.S: Here’s a list of cheaper healthy foods I’ve been working on for those having trouble finding budget friendly options:

Bananas: 50-60 cents per pound

Apples: 4-5$ per 3lb bag

Mandarin Oranges: 4-5$ per 3lb bag

Grapefruit: 6-7$ for a 5lb bag

Strawberries, blueberries depends on season, usually cheaper in bulk at a wholesale store

Instant Oatmeal: 3-4$ per 8 serving of instant flavored, 4-5$ for a large container

Eggs: Varies, but 10-20 cents per egg

Pancake mix: 3$ makes around 25-30 pancakes

Cheerios: 4-5$ a box depending on size

100% whole wheat bread: 2-3$ per loaf depending on brand, store brand is cheaper and usually just as good

Rice, boil in a bag: About 8 servings for about 3$

Cottage Cheese: 3-4$ for 6 servings

Bag of carrots: less than 2$

Green Pepper: less than 1$ each

Egg Noddles and other pasta: about 2$ for 8 servings

Potatoes: 3-6$ for 5-10lb bags

Chicken breast, pork chops and ground meat will be your cheapest meats. Look for quality, and look for leaner cuts. For example, for ground beef the range you want to look for is 90/10 or above (93/7, 96/4)

Vegetables usually go like this:

Fresh (best but most expensive) > Frozen (good, cheaper) > Canned (cheapest, least tasty)

Frozen steam-able bags of broccoli, brussell sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, peas and green beans are great, cheap options.

If this email helped you, share it with someone you know.

If someone shared this with you and you’d like to get emails like this every week, here’s the link below: