How to Enjoy Food…? – the Health Questions People Ask Google

Today’s search:

…more

1. Mindful eating – Savour your food. Mindful eating is a technique that works well when it comes to enjoying food more. Mindfulness is essentially about being more present in the moment, so when it comes to food, it’s about looking at the food, touching it, tasting it, smelling it.

2. Take breaks –  Another way to really make sure you enjoy the foods you eat is to take breaks from them. For example, people who have been on strict fitness diets always say that avoiding their favorite foods for a while makes them appreciate them so much more when they actually “can” have them. The best thing is, you get to set those rules, and you’re able to break them whenever you like, whenever you start craving the food again.

3. Exercise – Believe it or not, the more you move, the better the food tastes! If you’ve never tried to go for a morning walk before breakfast, you absolutely should. The breakfast tastes incredible when you’re slightly hungrier and less of a zombie.

…you hate 

There are ways to hack your tastebuds unless you’re one of the supertasters that have overly sensitive tastebuds. 

Very often, you might think you don’t like a particular food, but when you think about it, it was actually years ago you tried it last. Time to hack your taste buds! First step: Exposure. Expose yourself to the food. Nudge yourself towards trying the food again. The simplest way is to cook it differently. Maybe you don’t like raw tomatoes, but you might actually like them in salsa with mango, coriander, and spring onions, or roasted with parmesan.

Take any food on your hate list, add it to a meal or dish you normally wouldn’t. Like kale on a pizza, spinach or avocado in a smoothie, or beans or lentils as part of a spicy stew. 

Another easy trick to do with children is to combine the hated food with something delicious, and suddenly it’s bearable, or you hear the phrase, “that wasn’t so bad."

It’s also good if you can try to pinpoint what it is that you don’t like about the food. Is it too bitter, too spicy? Is it the consistency or how it gets stuck in your teeth? Maybe it’s even the looks? Then it’s easier to hack it. Don’t like the bitterness of raw broccoli? Steam it and season with soy sauce and sesame seeds. Hate how boring brown rice looks? Add turmeric and paprika powder or herbs when you boil it to give it a nice color.

…and lose weight

First of all, losing weight doesn’t mean that you need to go cold turkey on any foods. There’s always room for your favorite foods, end of discussion. With that said, because you can’t have your favorite comfort food every day, you’re going to need to learn to enjoy some new foods as well. It’s good if you can start by killing the idea that healthy is boring, dry, and doesn’t taste good. HEALTHY IS TASTY! Not always, but there’s tons of inspiration out there to help you find what you like. You can find some here, here & here.

Forget about eating less. You don’t need to worry about that. There are plenty of better ways to enjoy food and still accomplish your goals.

Intermittent fasting: where you fast a few days a week or a few hours of your day, is a powerful program.

Cheat days: where you eat healthy most days and save up space to indulge one day during the week

The 80 / 20% principle: eat 80% healthy favorite foods, 20% indulgence foods or 80% of the days or 80% of your meals healthy, 20% of your meals whatever you like

…without guilt 

There should never be any guilt involved when it comes to eating. If you’ve already done it, enjoy it, forget it and move on. Each new meal is a new chance to eat better. Each bad meal is a chance to learn.

Planning indulgences helps a lot. For example, “Tomorrow I’m gonna have my weekly cinnamon bun!” If you’ve already stated it, you can avoid a lot of the bad feelings and guilt that come with doing something that goes against what you’ve told yourself. Say it out loud: “I know I’ve decided to do this lifestyle change and avoid sugar, but today I really want to have this food.”

Always use the term I want to instead of I have to.

But let’s be real, we all feel guilty sometimes, so how do you tackle it? Do something that makes you feel better about it. It might sound counterproductive to think more about food, but planning your next meal and what you can have that is better than the food that made you feel guilty can make it feel better. Do something else that makes you feel good about yourself, go outside, take a walk, play with your kids, clean the kitchen and call it exercise, or call a supportive friend and talk it out.