How To Bring Your Diet Back To Balance After The Festive Season

The festive season is technically almost always a complete “write off” on healthy eating! The Christmas holidays, or even the month building up to it, are an inevitable showcase of abundant dinners and copious drinking. But with overindulging, comes the feeling that we ought to start the New Year with some balance and so we set an endless list of resolutions, one of which is taking control of our diet.

The problem, however, is that after mindlessly eating and drinking for a while; our body struggles to reverse to a healthy diet again. A lot of people feel that the “BIG BANG” approach is best, but this often leads to a month of success and a series of failures. The best approach is to think long-term and bring our diet back to balance without feeling restrained, step-by-step.

Set The Right Mindset

Success always comes when we are ready for it. In order to really make changes, we need to be ready to embrace eating healthy and not see this as deprivation, but a wonderful opportunity to cleanse our body and mind by cleaning our plates! Try and visualize all the wonderful foods you can allow yourself to have; imagine their vibrant energy flowing through your body and really giving you the vitality you deserve. You are not giving anything up; you are just adding in all the good stuff.

Plan Ahead

One of the best ways to guarantee success is planning and thinking about foods you enjoy. Create a meal plan with dishes you love eating. You don’t have to stick to the plan militantly, but having a plan will help you make sure you have the staples at home, you shop ONLY for the things you need, and plan cooking ahead too. Also, in your plan, you can add in a healthy treat here and there; maybe a raw vegan dessert that keeps you clear of junk and nourishes you.

Stay Away From “Diet”, “Fat-free” And “Sugar-Free” Foods

January is serious Marketing extravaganza in food stores. Big panels claiming to help you get healthier and lose weight by decreasing sugar or fat intake. Meanwhile, the truth is that, if you are relying on foods with such labels to clean your post-holiday diet, you are setting yourself up for failure. Foods with such claims are processed and packed with chemicals, flavouring and sweeteners anyway, causing havoc into your body.

Stock Up On What “Nature Intended”

When cleaning up your kitchen and stocking your cupboards for your New Year’s resolution, buy foods that come directly from nature: Fruit, vegetables, jarred pulses (if you have time to make them fresh, that is always best), nuts, seeds and whole grains such as brown, red or black rice, quinoa, spelt and amaranth. Also, stock up on superfoods such as Chlorella, Spirulina, Maca, Goji berries and Chia seeds for example.

Use Dried Fruit To Help You With Sugar Cravings

It is inevitable after Christmas to feel that we need a picker upper, particularly in the afternoon. Whilst we want to break the addiction to sugar, we also want to give the body what it needs, or cravings just get stronger. By adding three pitted dates a day with ten almonds, you are sure to help your body cope with the cravings it is facing. Moreover, this makes a great snack keeping your blood sugar stable and cutting the sugar highs you might have experienced over the holidays.

Cleaning up your eating habits is not about being on a diet; rather creating a wonderfully healthy lifestyle. These tips give some structure, but mostly have fun with it. If you do, and begin to embrace healthy eating as a way to have better foods that guarantee vitality and energy, and taste amazing, you are more likely to succeed. No matter how many times you stray from your plan, by following this concept, you can always go back to it effortlessly.

Have a Happy, Healthy New Year!