10 Behaviors to Modify According to the What Would Jesus Eat? Book
1) Modify the way you shop for food. Many people have difficulty modifying the way they eat. Instead, I recommend they modify the way they shop for food. One of the simplest and most effective behavioral strategies is this: Keep all junk food, processed food, and tempting foods out of your grocery cart and out of your house. Don't buy these foods. If you don't have them readily available, you aren't going to be as tempted to eat them. Many parents tell me that they believe their children will feel neglected if they don't have cookies, chips, or ice cream available for them. I simply tell them to buy their children fresh fruit. They'll quickly adapt and learn to enjoy fruit more than they enjoy ice cream, cookies, chips, and other junk foods.
2) Modify your eating time. Try to eat your evening meal so that you are completely finished with the meal before 7:00 p.m., and do not eat any late-night snacks.
3) Modify your after-dinner activity. Choose to go for a walk after you clean up the dishes from dinner. Enjoy the evening air. Go with your family or a friend, and continue your dinner-table conversation as you walk. You'll find it an enjoyable alternative to plopping down in front of the television.
4) Only have one helping of each food item, and practice "portion control" on that helping. Serve your plate from the serving bowl on the counter or the pot on the stove, and take your plate to the table to eat. You'll be less tempted to go back for a second helping.
5) Start leaving a few bites of food on your plate rather than cleaning your plate. If you add up all the uneaten bites over the course of a month, you are likely to have several meals' worth of food! Many of us were taught as children to clean our plates so we wouldn't waste food, especially with all the millions of starving children around the world. I discovered as a young adult that cleaning my plate never did help those starving children, and that the extra food I was eating was actually going to "waist" –– as in my waist.
6) Space your meals approximately four hours apart, and don't skip meals. Skipping meals tends to decrease metabolic rate. It also leads to low blood sugar, which usually triggers cravings for sugars, starches and junk food.
7) Keep healthy snacks around –– fruit, nuts, seeds. Have a light, healthy snack prior to doing your grocery shopping.
8) When you go to the grocery store, shop the perimeter of the store. I find that in most grocery stores, most of the healthy foods are located on the outside walls of the store. Avoid the bakery. And refuse to go down the aisle that has chips, cookies, or other tempting foods that are unhealthy.
9) Say "no" to dessert. Don't order any when you go out. If you are offered dessert by a hostess, simply say "no" politely.
10) Finally, refuse to eat food for any reason other than to fuel your body and enjoy a meal with family or friends. Too many of us were given comfort foods as children –– they tended to be puddings, soft drinks, and sugary foods. We can associate high-sugar, high-fat foods with happy times (for example, cake and ice cream at birthday parties). The result is that many adults turn to these so-called "comfort" foods when the stresses of life become overwhelming. In loneliness or in times of anxiety, they turn to food to cure what they feel emotionally. Refuse to fall into that pattern.
When you are feeling stressed out or anxious, go for a brisk walk. When you are feeling lonely, call a friend, and better yet, have that friend go on a walk with you!
–WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT? by DON COLBERT, M.D.
