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Easy Diet Recipes

Easy diet recipes are a major focus in my life right now as the summer wedding season approaches. For the last several weeks, I have been struggling with sticking to a diet. I would be good for a while, and then I would go off of it. I decided to start tracking what I was eating in a diet journal in order to heighten my awareness of what I was eating and its nutritional content. When I went off my diet, I then found that I conveniently forgot to write in my diet journal.

After much effort, I started remembering to write down everything I ate, but, without some easy diet recipes, I still found it difficult to stick to my healthier eating habits.

Next, I started focusing on the situations that lead to going back to my old eating habits. Typically, I was either out with friends on the weekends, or it happened at night, while watching TV. Well, I am not giving up socializing and I am not giving up Grey's Anatomy. So, I didn't have much ability to change the physical situations that were triggering my bad habits.

Experimenting with quick and easy diet recipes became a daily priority. I started focusing on working with, not against, my cravings and my lifestyle. I focused on what was right for me, not what was wrong. I immediately started feeling stronger, more energized, and I really felt that I could achieve my diet and weight loss goals. By shifting my strategy, my focus went to my own self-acceptance and self-awareness, which in turn gave me the inner power to be healthy. I started looking forward writing in my diet and exercise journal and I liked reading my entries at the end of each day.

I adjusted my relationship with food in order to take advantage of my personality strengths as a means for achieving my weight loss goal. People don't think, act, or feel like other people all of the time, so it doesn't make sense to me that the same diet should apply to a lot of different people. This makes sense, as a major factor in foods people eat is based on their personalities. Some people are adventurous and like spicy food, other people like to surround themselves with warmth and like comfort food. So, tailor your easy diet recipes to your personality.

Instead of fighting my personality in order to conform to a diet, I decided to tailor my diet to my personality and easy diet recipes helped tremendously.

Thoughts and feelings help to determine what you eat and when you eat. Your mental make-up is a big factor in what drives you to eat the way that you do. Struggling against who you are in order to conform to a specific diet has a very low long term success rate.

For the next week, write down in a journal how you feel immediately before and after you have something to eat.

Ask yourself:

"Why am I eating this?"

"When did I last eat?"

"Do I feel lonely, happy, excited, angry, stressed, or tired?"

"Will the food I am about to eat help me to feel more energized?"

"If I start eating, is it hard for me to stop eating?"

"If I eat this, how will I then feel?"

After eating food, ask yourself how you feel and what you are thinking. Did eating the ice cream make you feel better? If it really did, then by all means make room for it in your diet plan. Make sure to watch your portion size (try to keep it to 1 cup) and balance it out with either a salad or vegetable soup before indulging.

As for your thoughts, some people may be surprised to notice that they don't have any note worthy thoughts for several minutes after eating junk food. Their minds may actually be blank and that in itself should be noted as it may be a signal that eating junk food numbs your feelings and temporarily stops your negative thoughts.

Take a look back over the past week of entries in your food journal. Do you notice any patterns emerging such as feeling tired at 3pm and subsequently eating a candy bar? Are you stressed out on particular days and notice that you turn to comfort food at dinner in order to unwind? Is Wednesday your most hectic day, making it hard to eat lunch on time? If so, it may be best to eat a breakfast with staying power (oatmeal or an egg white omlet) on that day in order to prevent a late lunch binge.

By seeing and evaluating the patterns in your behavior and feelings that are driving your eating habits, you can systemize your eating behavior. You can schedule what you eat and what time you eat in such a way that is specifically designed to work with, not against, your habits and individual quirks.

You can develop a relationship with food that is natural, healthy, nourishing and that fits with your personality. Armed with some easy diet recipes, you can develop confidence in your future choices that will allow you to make smart decisions while letting yourself be who you are. This is a great way to develop better eating habits for the rest of your life.

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