Healthy Eating Tip: Give Planning a Try

In honor of National Nutrition Month®, my colleague Toby Smithson shares her tip to help you savor the flavor of eating right.

Give Planning a Try

Some people love planning ahead and some not so much. For those of you who love planning, I have some great news for your health about planning meals in advance. For those who aren’t fond of planning ahead, let me see if I can convince you to give it a try. You see, as difficult or boring as it may sound, planning is key to eating well and living a healthy lifestyle, and here’s why.

Making healthy eating decisions means thinking about choices, and deciding which choices are better. The “thinking” part of your brain is great at making decisions like this, but the thinking part of your brain needs time to consider the options. Thoughtful decision-making, especially about food, can be hijacked by impulse if you’re trying to make food decisions surrounded by food. Seeing food, smelling food, or even imaging food (advertisements) triggers strong biological responses. If you’re making food decisions surrounded by food – like when you wander the grocery without a list – your biology says to your thinking brain, “I got this.” Planning ahead takes biological impulse out of the picture.

Of course, there are other advantages to planning ahead when it comes to food. Planning is a time saver. For example, choose one hour over a weekend to plan a menu for the week (include breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack items), and use that same menu as your shopping list. That way you will have all the ingredients/items needed for eating your healthy meals. Planning your meals will also minimize eating out, where healthy choices are difficult to find. Be honest – how often is your decision to eat out made simply because you didn’t have a meal planned and didn’t feel like thinking about it?

Start today with a one week menu plan. Your meals don’t have to be complicated or time consuming to prepare. Just give your thinking brain a little time without distraction to do what it does best, and you’ll be eating healthier every day.

Toby Smithson, MS, RDN, LD, CDE, is a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Founder of DiabetesEveryDay.com, and author of Diabetes Meal Planning and Nutrition for Dummies.