How to “Trick” Yourself into Eating Healthier
Have you ever wished you could “trick” yourself into eating healthier?
If so, you might be surprised to discover that there IS—with no magic pills, no restriction, and no obsession to boot.
“Hacking” your way into healthier eating is simple, and it begins with your mindset.
The way you think about your food impacts your eating choices—your food mindset. If you’re not sure what your food mindset is, your associations with different foods will give you clues:
When you think about a healthy dish, what do you imagine? And when you think about unhealthy dishes, what do you imagine?
If you’re like most people, you probably associate “healthy” foods as being bland or boring, and conversely associate “unhealthy” foods as being tasty and indulgent.
Your food mindset matters because if you expect a certain food to give you a more pleasurable experience, you’re more likely to choose it.
[Quick aside: Vegetables aren’t the only foods that are healthy, and there are no black-and-white definitions of healthy vs. unhealthy foods. However, for the sake of simplicity, I will use veggies as an example throughout this piece because they are the poster children for healthy foods.]
In a recent study on increasing vegetable intake simply by changing the way vegetable dishes were labeled, researchers found that taste-focused labels increased vegetable selection by 29% compared with health-focused labels.
In this experiment, which was a randomized controlled intervention performed at five different universities, each day, the vegetable dish served in the cafeteria was randomly given either a taste-focused (e.g., “Sizzlin’ Szechuan Green Beans with Toasted Garlic”), health-focused (e.g., “Nutritious Green Beans”), or basic, non-descriptive label (e.g., “Green Beans”).
The taste-focused labels not only increased vegetable selection, but vegetable consumption also increased by 39%. This means people were more likely to put more vegetables on their plates (the first win), AND eat more of them.
The results of this study demonstrate the importance of food labeling, because the words we use influence our mindsets, which influence our expectations, which influence our behaviors.
People choose foods based on how they expect them to taste. This is a universal trait we all share. But food experiences are subjective rather than objective.
This means that you can experience the same exact food as more or less tasty, filling, or rewarding based on how it’s described, which changes how you are thinking about it. In other words, your thoughts are changing your reality.
Stop Relying on Your Willpower
According to a Pew Research Center survey in 2016, 58% of U.S. adults said that “most days I should probably be eating healthier.” You may feel similarly.
But many people struggle to stick to behavioral changes like eating healthier. In part, this is because there isn’t a compelling enough reason to stick with their desired changes.
Yes, we care about our health, and want to avoid adverse outcomes later on, and may even be experiencing health troubles presently…but delaying gratification is difficult, to make healthy choices NOW because we want to feel better LATER.
Instead, we end up making the more pleasurable choices now, leaving our future selves to deal with the consequences later. Many people abandon healthier eating patterns because they end up feeling bored, restricted, or deprived.
Think of it this way: if you associate eating healthy foods with being boring or restrictive, you’re going to need to rely on your willpower each time you choose what to eat. Because when you have a negative association with a behavior, choose that line of action will be exponentially harder for you.
On the flip side, if you have a positive association with eating healthy foods, because you find them indulgent, or at least pleasurable and enjoyable, you’ll experience a path of ease, and your desire to choose them will build.
That’s where your food mindset can come in, because you can train yourself to increase the pleasure you get from eating healthy foods.
Changing Your Food Mindset
If you want to begin changing your food mindset, here are a few “tricks” to get you started:
Choose foods you actually like.
Don’t force yourself to eat foods you don’t enjoy eating. I, for one, love peas and green beans. And I dislike spinach and celery. Can you guess what I don’t buy at the grocery store? If you’re not sure what you like, get curious. Take a new food home, and look up some recipes to see how to use it.
Make an effort to make your dishes taste good.
Don’t just throw a bunch of baby carrots on your plate and tell yourself you’re going to love them (unless you already love them). If you’re on the fence about a veggie, feel free to add it to another dish, e.g., put bell peppers into a pasta dish.
Choose produce that is in season. Add a variety of color and texture. Flavor your dishes with citrus, vinegars, or herbs and spices.Pay attention to the words you use to describe your food.
For example, in a mindset of indulgence, a meal of kale and egg whites I made was…tender spiced kale - purple kale sautéed in nutmeg butter; and a
savory winter omelet - egg white omelet with rosemary, sage, and thyme, drizzled with shallot-infused olive oil.
While you don’t need to play restauranteur with every meal, labeling your meals in this way for, say, a week or two, could be a fun way to get you started thinking differently about your food.Finally, and most importantly, use your mindset and mindfulness to take full advantage of the experience.
Eat mindfully: notice the flavors and textures you created. Savor the dish. And eat in a mindset of enjoyment and indulgence.
Changing your food mindset won’t be instantaneous, and requires repetition, but the results are well worth it.
Our Food Body Self students are learning how to mindfully experience and savor the pleasure of eating healthy foods every day.
By retraining your mindset to one of pleasure and indulgence when it comes to healthy foods, you’ll find yourself enjoying them more, and you’ll be choosing them more, too.