How I Finally Found a Healthy Diet that Worked

The term “healthy diet” can be so overwhelming, can’t it?

I know it used to freak me out. So many things needed my attention! How many servings of veggies are we supposed to have a day? What’s the difference between added sugar and natural sugar? And why the heck are salads so good for us when they’re SO UNGODLY BORING? #amiright?

The logistics and insanity of trying to overhaul my entire diet gave me analysis paralysis and you know what choice I made? I made the choice to stand still and do nothing at all. It was simply easier to eat what I deemed as “decent” and make up my own rules about what was healthy then to really think about what I was putting into my mouth.

The paragraph above is basically the story of my life and how I viewed my diet from about the time I entered college, until the end of last year.

Toward the end of 2017, I was nearing the end of my pregnancy with Brooks so I was unable to continue any sort of workout regimen. And since I’m an open book, let me tell you that I was sincerely afraid of continuing to eat the way I was eating after he was born! If I would have kept up at that pace, I’d be 500 pounds by now. I mean, I ate Reese’s peanut butter cups LIKE THEY WERE MY JOB. I’m confident the local grocery store kept them in stock just for me. It was bad.

On top of that, high cholesterol and heart disease run in both sides of my family. It wasn’t even so much that I wanted to change my diet to lose weight – I realized that I needed to change my diet if I had any hope of staying off of cholesterol medication. (Because what are your 30’s for, other than to start worrying about being on cholesterol medication?)

So when it came to making a plan to overhaul my diet once and for all, I knew I needed to do 2 things:

1. I needed to keep my plan simple. Because if I tried to change everything at once, I’d be in over my head and the overwhelm of trying to make so many changes at once would make me quit. (Analysis paralysis, ya’ll. It’s a real thing.)
2. I also knew that I needed to take it slow and find a plan that would work for the rest of my life, not just for a couple weeks.

So for anyone curious on how I was finally able to overhaul my diet, here are the steps I took:

I started with committing to really paying attention to what’s in my food.

Anyone else as good at deceiving themselves as I am? I was reeeeaaallllyyyy good at convincing myself that I was eating “healthy” food when in reality, the food I was eating was chocked full of ingredients I couldn’t even pronounce. I knew I needed to keep the processed stuff to a minimum. Even if I liked it. Even if I REALLY REALLY liked it.

Once I started looking at labels, I noticed not only the amount of processed sugar that’s added to our packaged food, but also just the pure amount of food that’s marketed as being healthy when it really isn’t! So this was step one for me: Make a commitment to looking at labels and quit lying to myself about what was healthy. The easiest way I could do this was by choosing whole foods. Do you know how many ingredients are in carrots? One. Carrots. Seems simple enough, right? Choosing whole foods took the decision making element out of choosing what to buy.

Then I began making small swaps.

This step was probably the biggest game changer for me. I started with baby steps. Like, baby baby  steps. The easiest way for me to start making swaps, was by focusing on just changing one meal at a time.

First up: Breakfast. It was way too easy to pour a bowl of cereal and then polish off the other half of Colton’s pop tart each morning. (Because eating pop tarts is like the easiest way to relive my childhood.) So for 3 weeks, I worked only on overhauling my breakfast. I refrained (most of the time) from eating the leftover pop tarts and cut out cereal by switching it with Greek Yogurt, topped with mostly unpossessed granola, and fruit. I told myself I could eat whatever else I wanted to that day, but I needed to eat a healthy breakfast.

After I felt like I had a good grasp on breakfast, I moved onto lunch, keeping the same theme: I could eat whatever I wanted in the afternoon and for dinner, but I needed to eat a healthy breakfast and lunch, taking 3 weeks to really commit to a routine. I’ve continued this train of thought all the way through each of my meals.

Now that I feel a lot more comfortable with each of my meals, I try to keep the rule of thumb that green veggies make up the biggest portion of my lunches and dinners. For lunch, I eat a lot of salads, mixing up the toppings here and there, but keeping the main focus on a large portion of green, leafy veggies. For dinner, I still eat a small portion of the main dish that I make for the family, but I just try to be sure that the majority of my plate is full of broccoli, fresh green beans, etc.

To wrap it up…

Do I still eat out? Yes. Do I still eat a giant, juicy cheeseburger every once in a while? You bet! My goal wasn’t to completely cut out all fast foods or the things I enjoy. My goal was to just cut it WAY back by increasing healthy foods. I will still absolutely drop whatever I’m doing for a piece of homemade cheesecake. Every. Time.

And I’ll even be completely up front in that it took me a lot of trial runs to find salad creations I actually enjoy. But the energy I feel all afternoon after eating a lighter and healthy lunch? I WISH I COULD SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD.

The best part of all of this? My cholesterol is now down under 200. 200 people! In all the years I’ve had it checked, it’s NEVER been below 200. Take that, cholesterol medication! (Am I really getting this old to be celebrating the lack of needing medication??)

All in all, please know that I don’t think of myself as any sort of expert. I’m not a health nut or think my diet is perfect in any shape or fashion. But I do feel like I’ve learned A LOT about eating healthy lately, and I’m hopeful that what I’ve learned can help you, too!