Genuine Hurdles in Eating Healthy and It's Possible Solutions

 

Many people nowadays with a craze of health and fitness scroll their eyes on different ideas to eat healthy. Some take professional help, some opt for for Dr. Google, some believe on their own knowledge and idea and end up feeling that 'eating healthy is not easy' end up choosing any possible shortcut to be healthy and fit. Now we need to think is it really so hard to eat healthy? Well the answer is 'Yes'. We need to cross a lot of hurdles to practice a healthy eating habit. Do read this article to know the hard truths about eating healthy.
Reasons why healthy eating is tough to maintain:

Dt. Keya Mukherjee Mitra

PG Dip (Dietetics n Applied nutrition), Msc.in Nutrition n dietetics, Post graduate Certificate (Diabetes Education)

Dietitian/Nutritionist • 384 People helped • 6 Years experience

1. You need a good market: By 'market' I mean a place from where you can buy fresh, seasonal, affordable, whole foods. And, if you are in a small town or on a budget, then forgot about fancy foods like broccoli, red cabbage, lettuce, salmon, tuna, multigrain bread and so on etc. When you can't get all this latest stuffs it comes in your mind that you can't get health with local foods at all, as you are seeing guacamole recipe for your salad or multigrain sandwich. In this frustration you will chose to have pizza, or a street side roll, full cheese sandwich, which might be similar to all the fancy meals read or suggested to you to be healthy. And the results  are problems, such as overweight or underweight or other health disorders. It is just the first reason why eating healthy is hard and even if you cross this hurdle, there are others.

2. You need time for shop: In this 21st century our lives are in superfast mode. Some of us work for 60 hours a week and come back home with all the tiredness, irritability and basically with the need to sleep and rest. At that moment healthy food shopping in budget is nowhere in life. As a lot of us stay alone or both the partners working along with a child for homework or different classes. A lot more examples are there. So time is a big hurdle too.

3. You need time and energy to cook: Now if you can are able to buy fresh foods in your budget, you need to have time to cook all this for you or for your family. That again needs time and energy from you. Now how you cross this hurdle?

4. You need cooking equipments and more than anything else you need cooking skill: It is tough to cut veggies on a plate with butter knife or eat a curry with no salt n spice or make idli without idli mold. And, in that situation you decide to leave healthy eating and opt for a pizza or dine out, all these hurdles after 50 to 60 hours of weekly work will get on your nerves. Let me tell you, your feeling is absolutely normal.

Now what next? Here are some possible solutions:

1. Respect your struggle: Be realistic and learn from your failure. Almost each of us knows fruits and vegetables are good, sugary foods are bad, even you know about portion control. But whatever suggestions you have received is not at all easy to maintain, you need to admit that. You need to know, practice makes you perfect and you can fail in between.     Not to worry, start again. Find new strategies to work on eating     healthy challenge.

2. Make a kitchen toolkit collection: With smart choice of kitchen toolkit can make your work easy

• A good knife, chopping board, peeler, slicer, dicer and easy vegetable chopper (cost around Rs.350/- onwards)
• Silicon coated cooking utensils (kadai, pan etc., cost around Rs.1000/-  onwards)     
• A steamer pot (costs around Rs.500/- onwards)
• Basic OTG and utensils (costs around Rs.2500/- onwards)
• Roti maker (costs around Rs.1000/- onwards)
• Hand blender ( costs around Rs.1000/- onwards)

3. Make a schedule for shopping and cooking: Make a smart grocery shopping list (with minimum preservatives) with pre planned meal for a whole week. Choose locally grown foods if you are in a small town or     order online if your area is covered for delivery by grocery stores. You can consult a qualified dietician for a healthy menu and recipes also. Nowadays it is very easy as online clinics are there. In this way you can avoid scrambling your plan to eat healthy and save money by minimum food wastage.

4. Reduce your stress: Eating healthy will help in relaxing you and you can properly utilize your resources of money, time, energy and skill. If you are in stress you can't use any of it. So, go for walk; relax with music or book, go for vacation with your family and friends to manage your stress.

5. Simplify your cooking: You must not elaborate your meals all the time. Think smartly and make one pot meal with maximum nutrition.   

6. Ask for help or help each other: It's ok if you ask for help to eat healthy. So help your partner or mom in cooking or shopping or ask for help from a professional. As in India it's quite easy to get a cook at your place. You can hire a cook for yourself or to save money jointly with some friends.

7. Learn new strategies of healthy eating: Healthy cooking needs more effort than you think. So before you leave healthy eating, stop and re-examine. Search Dr. Google or learn from your mom or family or society for new recipes and customize recipes for healthy eating or for relaxation join cooking class.

8. Eat out once a week and eat smartly: Fond of eating out? No problem. Choose a day in a week and eat outside food in one meal. But choose less oily, less fried, less preservative, maximum nutrition options. Like you can opt for thin crust whole wheat pizza with or sub wrap or sandwich with all veggies, baked or grilled filling with no extra cheese, Idli with sambar, yellow dal with whole wheat tandoori roti (no butter), grilled or baked or steamed options according to your choice. Learn about your healthy meal.
After reading all possible solutions I am sure you will start eating healthy, learn and help others to eat healthy.