How to Make Your Diet Fit with Your Lifestyle

Setting goals is a fantastic way to motivate yourself, regardless of what it is you’re trying to achieve. Of course what you’re trying to achieve is a goal in itself but setting shorter goals gives you something that you can aim for in a shorter term and that then means you get the satisfaction of feeling as though you’re making progress as you tick things off of your list.

This is why ‘gamification’ works so well as a way to motivate yourself through challenges. This means turning an objective into a game that you can score yourself on. This feedback loop provides incentive and reward and helps you to measure your improvement.

The only problem? Not many people know how to set goals in a way it matches their lifestyle.

For a diet to be successful, it needs to be sustainable. It’s no good to stick to any diet for just a week – as soon as you come off it any progress will be reset back to zero. Your diet then should be designed to last and even if that means the results are slower coming to begin with, it will be worth it in the long run.

Unfortunately, though, this is something that a lot of diet books and advisors miss out. In this post then, we’ll be examining what you can do to make your diet fit better with your lifestyle and how you can make it that much easier to stick to.

Be Stricter at Breakfast and Lunch

One of the biggest challenges in sticking to any diet is the social aspect. What we neglect to notice often is that eating is a social event in many cases – and if you choose to forego chips or dessert then you will alienate your eating partner as well as having to then watch them eat the thing you just denied yourself. Which is no fun as you might imagine.

This is mainly a problem at dinner, as that is when most of us will come home to eat with our families and partners. It can also be a challenge at the weekends when we’re more likely to be entertaining guests.

A good solution then is to be stricter during the hours when you’ll be eating alone – which means breakfast and lunch. Make your lunch box strict and your breakfast strict and then you’ll be freer to relax slightly in the evening or at the weekends on ‘cheat days’.

Find Some Easy and Cheap Meals

The other thing to look out for is complex, expensive meals that you’re unlikely to have the motivation to eat when you’re feeling low. To stick to a diet, it helps if it’s comprised of easy things to pick up and prepare.

Finding a salad bar can help a great deal for your lunch then, especially if it’s cheap. Another tip is to look into preparing meals at the start of the week and keeping them in the fridge or freezer. And don’t be afraid to eat the same thing regularly, being a little more consistent is a great way to stick at your diet more easily.

Finally, look into some gadgets that can make preparing your meals easier. Food processors, juicers and slow cookers can all save you a lot of work!

Alexander Khal is a Blogger and the founder of The Masked Coach