Why Try to Perfect Dietary Habits?

In the world of personal development, it seems as if one has not reached dietary enlightenment unless you eat a vegan, or even completely raw, diet. Steve Pavlina, an avid raw foodist, enjoys cracking jokes at those who happen to cook their food, eat anything processed, or consume animal products. I think the way he pushes this issue is a little overbearing, and frankly ineffective in convincing others to give it a shot.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to improve my diet more, but I think I stalled because I assumed that taking things to the next level would require the adoption of rigid, inflexible habits that clash with those of my friends and family. But I recently realized that this is completely unnecessary.

Very few areas of personal growth are feasible or desirable to actually pursue perfection in, and I believe this is the case with dietary habits. Why should dietary routines be all-or-nothing? Instead, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to your desired diet the majority of the time, whatever that may be, but provide yourself with the leeway to bend the rules on occasion. In my mind, this makes much more practical sense than an uncompromising mindset.

Let’s assume that I’ve implemented a completely raw diet…

When my group of friends that I don’t often get to see meet up at Pizza Hut, I’m going to be there, my diet be damned. Standing on my soapbox and denouncing their inferior ways would accomplish nothing except drive them away, and even a polite refusal would strain the friendships. The ‘if they’re not congruent, dump ‘em’ attitude that Pavlina projects is not something I’m about to employ for something like eating habits. I’ll settle for a healthy, but not perfect diet, and enjoy a bit more freedom. Exceptions can sometimes be made without compromising values and beliefs.

A vegetarian or vegan who is so because of their moral values won’t be so keen on making exceptions, but in the above scenario they could simply eat cheese pizza, breadsticks, and/or salad bar and still enjoy the outing. As for someone who eats vegan or raw primarily for health reasons, there’s no need to forgo the social gathering for a night home alone eating a veggie platter. An occasional cheat meal won’t hurt anything (in fact, it may even be beneficial, according to some dieticians).

As with any lifestyle change, there may be some adjustments that take some getting used too with a different diet. When people like Pavlina write about dieting in such a narcissistic way, it may seem like social strain and separation is an inevitable part of this adjustment. This needn’t be the case if people respect the personal nature of dietary habits.

With that, I am now turning my attention to improving my diet further. I’ve read many accounts of people swearing by their decisions to give up dairy products, citing several noticeable health benefits. I don’t know of a general consensus in the health community, but even if there was, there’s only one way to settle this matter. I’ll have to do some experimenting for myself.

Today marks the start of a 30-day trial-until the first of July, the only beverage I will consume is water. I’ve cut my milk consumption quite a bit over the past few months, but this will still be an adjustment (especially because of chocolate milk- I love that stuff).

There is one minor exception, though. I’m a huge cereal fan; it’s not going anywhere. I’m going to allow myself one bowl of cereal each morning.

I’m going to replace the calories with fruits, veggies, and protein sources like nuts, eggs, and chicken, while obviously drinking more water. Normally when I’m craving a glass of milk, it’s my body wanting the liquid and the calories, so I’m going to have to be aware of this and make sure that I replace the milk with healthy calories.

One month from now I’ll be sure to give at least a quick update on how the trial went.

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How to Change Your Diet (Without Crashing)

Few  aspects of life are unaffected by how we eat.  It’s fairly counterintuitive to pursue personal ambitions and yet exercise poor dietary habits.  Everything you do is fueled by what you eat, and many of your results in life will be correlated to a sizable extent with the quality of the fuel you choose.

During my high school years, I didn’t eat very well.  Despite working out year-round, playing basketball and running track, I never quite reached the physical condition I was probably capable of reaching.  I was in pretty good shape, but I hindered myself with my eating habits, especially at lunch.  Our school did not have a large variety of healthy options, but I still could have made better choices.

I justified my substandard diet by the 2-3 hours of physical activity I normally engaged in daily; I figured as long as I burned it off, no harm would be done.  I realize now how poor that reasoning was, and I’m sure I could have performed better had I provided myself with higher quality sources of energy than a fried entrée, a salad drowned in ranch dressing, and a chocolate malt or Snickers ice cream bar.

My freshman year in college, I started monitoring and improving my diet.  I made small changes that could be implemented without too much difficulty, then progressed accordingly.  Attempting a 180 degree turnaround on a dime asks far too much of your discipline and persistence (ask almost anyone who started an all-new diet on January 1st).  I’d rather make slow and steady progress than set myself up for a big, painful crash and burn.

Over the past 2 years, I’ve come a long way:

1.) I used to average at least one can of Sprite every day, but now I don’t consume any pop outside of special occasions.  I replaced those empty calories with good old h2o. 

2.) I was always a 2% milk guy, and although I would drink skim if I had too, I didn’t enjoy the watered-down taste.  It took some time to adjust, but now I drink nothing but skim.  In fact, 2% now is too thick for my liking (except chocolate- skim chocolate isn’t very tasty).

3.) In high school I would always get a side salad with my lunch, but I’d smother it in ranch.  When I got to college I substituted spinach leaf salads for the iceberg type, although it was still only edible with plenty of dressing.  After cutting back very gradually, I can now eat spinach leaves without dressing ( my high school self wouldn’t have been capable of doing that without gagging and muttering something about ‘rabbit food’).

4.) I replaced a lot of red meat with leaner proteins such as chicken, fish, and nuts.  I haven’t lost my taste for a tenderloin or a burger off the grill, but I eat red meat pretty sparingly.

5.) Pizza, microwavable goodies, fast food, sugary cereals, and sweets have been greatly reduced.  I still enjoy these things on occasion, but I don’t consume them on a regular basis like I used to.

In many ways, these improvements have helped immensely over the past couple years.  We all know the often-touted benefits of eating right, and I’ve certainly noticed those for myself, but I’ve also received indirect benefits as well.  Each additional dietary change requires the use of my self-discipline in order to break old habits.  By exercising discipline with what I eat, it grows stronger and can be called upon in other areas, such as writing tedious papers when there are a million possible ways to procrastinate (lifting weights is also great for this reason).  The fact that I can observe both the tangible and intangible benefits of eating better only reinforces my belief that persistence does pay off.

Dietary improvements need not be a daunting task, no matter how poor the current situation may be.  Whatever your current standard is, you can begin working from there.  Don’t try moving the mountain overnight; make it a step-by-step process.  I highly recommend using a 30 day trial to make small changes and ensure that they will be adhered to long enough to become a new habit.

For next week, I’m going to pose a question to myself and work off that; where do I go from here (diet-wise, that is)?  

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