So after my confession - and the response I got - about having such a hard time eating veggies these days, my stubborness has kicked in. Darn it, I love vegetables! Not only are they delicious, they're so good for us, easy to prepare, and right there for us to enjoy. I love filling my plate with bright colors and knowing that every bite I take is doing something great for my body. So I made it a challenge: eat vegetables for one meal every day for a week, starting TODAY. I'm making a huge salad for dinner and I am going to love it!
It's a choice.
I was choosing to let my whiny pregnant self call the shots, but the muscular, strong, vibrant, vegetable lover inside of me was withering in response. That's not cool. I'm making a different choice and turning the tables.
When it comes to making tough choices, I turn to decisional balance, a logic tool I use in wellness coaching to shed light on motivators that may be in the wings, waiting for a moment to shine. Some ways to use decisional balance are to list the pros and cons of each choice, visualize yourself living in each choice and experiencing the emotions that result, and simply asking yourself to list reasons why not to make the change. It's pretty difficult to find enough reasons why not to eat vegetables to justify actually not doing it!
I made my pros and cons, and my con list had just one reason: overcoming my tastebuds. Dude, I've done that so many times and had amazing feedback as a result that I know I can knock it out in no time and I will feel incredible as a result. So, the decision is clear: I want to eat vegetables...I just need to do it long enough to remember why.
Veggies for one meal for a week. Here we go! If you're struggling with making healthy choices, simply apply some logic. When you see your reasons why you should stay unhealthy written on paper, they seem pretty lame. Don't be lame.
Get out there and be healthy!
2 comments:
I guess without realizing I was doing it, I used "decisional balance" yesterday. A friend wanted me to join her in a lunch meal at either Jimmy John's or Zaxby's. Oh, it seemed liked it would be so much tastier than the leftovers I brought, although I knew my leftover tuna casserole was, hands down, the. best. batch. ever. Still. I was tempted by those sammiches and chicken. I looked up the menus. Found some delicious-sounding choices ... then ... I pulled up the nutritional information. EIGHT HUNDRED CALORIES FOR LUNCH??!?! TWENTY SIX GRAMS OF FAT?!?!?! TWELVE-HUNDRED GRAMS OF SODIUM!?!?
Holy moly!
I made a mental list of the pros and cons. Eat that and feel gross, or have my healthy, homemade tuna casserole and feel fine. I passed on the take-out. :-) My Heather voice was speaking to me!
I am so glad you checked that website! Yikes! 800 calories is half a day for some women...scary to think you could have eaten it in one meal.
We exercised some decisonal balance last night, too. Chicken? Or pizza? We chose chicken and I am so glad today!
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