Quick Tips to Make Healthier Decisions, According to Science

Every hour, you make hundreds (or thousands) of decisions. So it’s no wonder that making healthy choices seems so hard! Here are some mind-hacks to trick your brain into making those decisions even faster! The key here is to integrate health into your everyday life.

Pre-Plan for Success

You just get home from work. You’ve been sitting in traffic, you’re hungry, and you’re tired. What is the chance that you’ll take the time to stop and think about a healthy option to make for dinner? My guess is pretty low. Instead, it’s often easier to grab a frozen meal, order delivery, or just munch on snack foods the rest of the night. And while these options are okay to do some of the time, they likely won’t help with reaching your health goals.

While meal planning may sound intimidating at first, when you get home and already have a healthy dinner ready to go (or at least prepped), you’ll be happy you did it.

A French study of 40,554 individuals found that those who regularly meal planned were more likely to have a healthier diet and weight.

And planning doesn’t have to be just for cooking at home either. Know you’re going out to eat? Take a look at the menu beforehand and pick one or two options that are healthier, but still sound appetizing. Traveling for work? Search online to see if the hotel will have a gym, or maybe even fitness classes nearby.

By pre-planning when you aren’t as stressed and on go-mode will help you make more informed decisions that are better aligned with your health goals. And to make this even easier, you can use your Lose It! App to help plan out your meals and physical activity.

 Adapt Your Environment

While mindfulness is an important skill to develop, there are changes you can make to your environment to make sticking to your goals easier.

In a recent randomized controlled trial looking at weight loss strategies, 262 individuals were randomized to one of three groups: behavioral therapy, behavioral therapy plus meal replacements, or nutrition-focused modifications to the home environment. After 1 year, the group assigned to home modifications had significantly greater weight loss than either of the other two groups. 

If your goal is to eat healthier and snack less, giving your kitchen a health-makeover is an easy, yet effective solution. Clean out your fridge and pantry, put less-healthy items on higher shelves and healthier items at eye-level, and swap the cookie jar for a bowl of fruit or other healthier snacks to grab whenever hunger hits.

 Connect with a Healthy Community

Even if you’re extremely self-motivated, it’s hard to stick with health goals without support.Whether you’re sitting at the dinner table with your family or out to eat with friends, it’s never fun being the only one trying to eat healthier. It’s also hard when you’re trying to be more physically active but everyone around you prefers going out to eat or watching TV over going on a walk or taking up a sport.

Research shows that individuals who have support from family, friends, and co-workers with regards to healthier eating and increasing physical activity are better able to manage and maintain their weight. 

While it’s great if you can get your family or friends onboard with a healthier lifestyle, it can also be helpful to reach out to others in your community with similar goals. Many cities have groups, like the November Project, that do free workouts together.

There are also a bunch of support groups and team challenges that you can join through Lose It! To help keep you motivated and on track. 

Make a Pro’s and Con’s List

It can seem hard to choose a healthier meal, but it’s even harder to live with knee problems and other ailments associated with a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet.

When counseling, I talk a lot about stages of behavior change with clients. While many people are aware that they need to make a change, they get stuck in the contemplation stage. My top recommendation for anyone in this phase is to get out the pen and paper and start writing down pro’s and con’s of making a specific change.

Chances are the pro’s will outweigh the con’s, and once you see the benefits, you can connect emotionally to the change rather than just doing it because you feel like it’s something you’re supposed to do. Tape this list on your fridge or take a picture to keep on your phone for a little boost of motivation anytime making the healthier choice seems difficult.

Visualize Your Outcome

While creating realistic goals is an essential step towards a healthier life, many of us miss an equally important part of the process: visualizing the desired outcome.

From athletes to successful entrepreneurs, visualization has been shown to to improve motivation and reduce anxiety and stress. While you may have your health goals, it’s hard to be motivated if you don’t have an idea of what the future you’re working towards looks like.

However, it’s important to separate dreaming from visualizing. While you can dream anything, visualizing should be more grounded in reality, with realistic and achievable goals.

There are two types of visualization, and both are key for achieving your goals. The first is outcome visualization, where you envision yourself achieving your goal. This visualization should be detailed and give you that inner confidence that you can and will get to where you want to be.

The second type of visualization is process visualization. This is where you envision all the steps (again, in detail) that you need to take in order to get to your final goal.

Have you tried any of these tips? We’d love to hear in the comments below!