1. Avoid Making Decisions as Much as Possible

Making decisions is where diet changes often break down in practice, and the average person makes about 200 food-related decisions daily.³ All those decisions can lead to decision fatigue, which erodes your willpower.⁴ Try to set up your life so that your food-related decisions are minimized and the healthiest choice is also the easiest. How to do this? Stock your house and kitchen with healthy food and be as consistent with your intentions as much as you can, such as by bringing food with you during errands and trips so you don’t need to forage in a gas station and keeping food (that you like!) in your desk at work so you don’t have to resort to the vending machine or unhealthy snacks laying around the office.

2. Decide in Advance When Decisions Will Be Needed

The challenge to fully getting out of the Pleasure Trap is that addictive foods can feel good in the immediate moment. That’s why people who create implementation intentions tend to be more successful at creating new habits than those who don’t.⁵ This means making a plan with yourself before you get to the decision-making point. Going out to eat with friends on Friday? Look at the restaurant’s menu online and figure out what you’re going to order in advance. When you get there, enjoy the company and don’t spend your energy and time figuring out how to navigate the menu.

3. Change Your Environment to Break Bad Habits

Breaking habits is hard when you’re accustomed to behaving in a certain way in a certain context, but even making changes to your environment that don’t seem food-related can help you in interrupting your typical patterns⁵. When you’re starting a new behavior, try shopping in a new grocery store or rearranging your furniture. These physical changes can help you shift your feeling about what is normal, which can help make other changes seem normal too.

4. Don’t Let Yourself Get Too Hungry

Practicing self-control, and the capacity for it, are both correlated with stored glucose levels in the brain.^6,7 That means making decisions can make you tired, and it also takes energy and can contribute to getting hungrier.⁸ Even cravings can be intensified, as researchers have long noted in the context of studying withdrawal.⁹ The moral of the story? Plan ahead and bring snacks so you can avoid feeling “hangry,” the moment when you’re most likely to veer off course.

5. Focus on Supporting Yourself in the First Few Weeks

The good news about diet and habits is that most behaviors repeated on a regular basis turn into habits. While intentions matter at the beginning of a new behavior, they matter less and less as habits become stronger.¹ Plus, simply repeating a behavior will strengthen the automaticity with which you do it—so at the beginning of any dietary change, know that the first few weeks will take some work, but if you can support yourself in as many ways as possible so you repeat the behavior as frequently as possible, you’ll be paid back as it becomes habit that much more quickly. Besides doing the four things listed above, “supporting yourself” could also mean connecting with other plant-based eaters, journaling about your experiences, or using a reminder or scheduling app on your phone. Just do what works for you, and what will help keep you on track.

The longer you eat plant-based, the more automatic and easier it will be, so you’ll need to rely less and less on these strategies to stay on track. Once you’re in a routine of plant-based eating, you won’t have to stop to think about it, and you can just enjoy being a healthier, happier, more effective person in the world!

The post 5 Ways To Make Healthy Eating Habits Stick appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

This new study, published online in Neurology, found that eating healthfully is the best way to preserve memory and mental sharpness as you age. The study followed almost 28,000 adults aged 55 and older from 40 different countries. Researchers rated participants’ diets over five years, giving higher points for fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and lower points for red meat and processed foods.

The Study Results Were Striking

The healthiest eaters were 24% less likely to have cognitive decline (memory loss, reasoning ability); those with the worst diets were most likely to have cognitive decline.

The “healthy eating” scale used by researchers had fruits and vegetables at the healthiest end of the scale and red meat and deep-fried foods at the unhealthiest end.

There Was No Magic Ingredient

The researchers from McMaster University determined that there wasn’t one magic food or ingredient, but that it was eating a healthier diet overall. Study author, Professor Andrew Smyth, told Forbes:

“The consumption of ‘healthy’ choices may be beneficial, but the effect may be lost/reduced with the consumption of ‘unhealthy’ choices. For example, the beneficial effect of fruit may be lost if prepared with high amounts of fats or sugars. Our data suggest that an overall healthy diet is more important than the consumption of any one particular food.”

What We Know About the Link Between Diet and Memory

This study adds to the growing body of research that shows that what we eat affects how well our brains age. We asked medical experts in the field to weigh in on the new findings.

“Choosing fruits and vegetables over meats, dairy products, and eggs could cut the risk of serious memory problems,” says Physicians Committee president Neal Barnard, MD. “Evidence has shown that what is good for the heart is good for the brain.” Dr. Barnard is a clinical researcher and author of Power Foods for the Brain.

Matthew Lederman, MD, medical advisor to Forks Over Knives, commented, “In general, any dietary change that increases your consumption of whole plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can positively impact your brain health.”

The study was published online before print in Neurology.

Sources:
_{http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_152397.html
http://www.webmd.com/diet/20150506/healthy-eating-may-shield-the-aging-brain
http://www.medicaldaily.com/eating-healthy-lowers-risk-declining-memorythinking-skills-24-332328}

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WHY I DID IT

Knowing that so many people struggle to feed themselves and their families made me feel obligated to give it a try. I wanted to understand what 1.4 billion people experience in their daily lives. Also, as a person on a whole-food, plant-based diet, I wanted to see what such a diet would look like on an austere budget.

WHAT WAS NEEDED

I realized early on that three important factors would make my five-day trial a success.

• The first was knowledge: what food items are cheap and provide an adequate amount of calories and nutrients per dollar? I found that starchy plant foods ⎯ lentils, beans, rice, potatoes, carrots, corn tortillas, and beans would meet these needs. Whole-grain pasta and flour, though moderately processed, also fit the bill and seemed an appropriate compromise under the circumstances.
• The second factor was accessibility: where could I find cheap ingredients and how easy or difficult would it be to obtain them? I found that nearby discount stores (like 99-cent stores) had the basics that I needed.
• The third factor was time: I needed to find the time to cook. In order to get an adequate amount of food for the money, I could not eat pre-made meals. I planned on being efficient by cooking several meals at a time.

WHAT I BOUGHT

I started the challenge by spending the majority of my five-day $7.50 budget on the following ingredients at my local 99-cent store:

• 10 lb. bag of potatoes = 99¢
• 2 lb. bag of carrots = 99¢
• 1 lb. bag of brown rice = 99¢
• 1 lb. bag of brown lentils = 99¢
• 2/3 lb. of brown rice pasta = 99¢
• 2 cans of tomato sauce = 99¢

I also bought ½ lb. of organic oatmeal (from the bulk section of Whole Foods) for 42¢. And finally, I set aside 30¢ for some spices from my pantry.

TOTAL SO FAR: $6.72

WHAT I GOT

Here’s how my loot shook out:

• One cup of lentils makes a lot of soup – actually four big bowls! Since there are 2½ cups of lentils in a 1-pound pack, I was able to make ten bowls!
• One cup of brown rice will make about 1½ cups of cooked rice – good enough for 3 to 4 meals. There are 2½ cups of rice in a 1-pound pack.
• The ½ lb. of oatmeal would give me 1½ lbs cooked oatmeal.
• The bag of potatoes contained about 18 small to medium potatoes, enough to be a substantial portion of each day’s intake.
• The 2/3 lb. of pasta made about five cups, enough for four large meals.

WHAT I ATE

Here was my daily menu:

• Day 1: Masala mashed potatoes, lentil stew with spices, carrots and brown rice. I divided it into three meals, which was plenty for the day. I even had leftovers!
• Day 2: Oatmeal with carrots, boiled potatoes seasoned with salt and pepper, leftover lentil stew and fresh carrots. Again, I had plenty to eat.
• Day 3: Potato stew with tomato sauce, leftover brown rice and lentil stew, and fresh carrots.
• Day 4: Baked potatoes, brown rice with carrots, curry-flavored oatmeal with carrots, sprouted lentil dal. I really enjoyed my food this day ⎯ sprouting the lentils made them taste fresh and light, and baked potatoes are so good! I bought a lime this day for 33¢ (pricey for one lime!), because I was missing sour flavors.
• Day 5: Pasta with tomato sauce, lentils, and carrots, plus baked potatoes. And I spent the remaining 45¢ on ½ lb. of fresh organic spinach! There was enough pasta left over for lunch the next day. I also ended up with about two pounds of unused potatoes.

GRAND TOTAL: $7.50

WHAT I LEARNED

Eating on a low budget oriented me toward simple, unprocessed food. I actually felt quite healthy!

The main lesson I learned is that to feed a hungry world we need to focus our resources on simple starchy staple foods, which provide the highest number of reasonably nutritious calories for the least amount of money.

I also realized that living on a healthy, plant-based diet does not have to be expensive. While eating a plant-based diet on $1.50 per day was inconvenient and challenging, I found it to be surprisingly satisfying. While $1.50 per day may be particularly extreme, it is still entirely possible to be sufficiently nourished, even at that level. This is great news for students and those on fixed incomes.

Mission accomplished!

Chef’s Note:

“Many of you have pointed out that there were not enough fresh vegetables in my diet, and I agree with you! I would look lustfully at the greens and fruits at Whole Foods when I would shop for my client during this time (I am a chef). I didn’t have any fresh vegetables (except carrots) till the fifth day when I got some fresh spinach from the farmer’s market. But if I had continued on this budget, in the following days I would have been able to add more fresh vegetables and fruits. Because I had enough staples like pasta, potatoes, rice and lentils leftover for the next day or two, my daily budget of $ 1.50 would have then gone towards some bananas and fresh greens like spinach, swiss chard, or kale. In the normal course of making meals, we supplement what we have in the refrigerator or pantry with what is missing, in order to have well-balanced meals on a daily basis. The five days were a starting point to demonstrate that we can eat a healthy whole-food, plant-based diet on a restricted budget.”

Editor’s Note:

To put this into context, the “Live Below the Line” challenge was an international social media campaign to raise awareness about the 1.2 billion people in the world that have $1.50 or less to spend on food per day. To learn more, sign up, or donate, please visit Live Below the Line.

We wanted to demonstrate how a whole-food, plant-based diet could be done healthfully on an extremely low budget, where sustaining yourself and your family is an urgency and the choice of fresh, organic, non-packaged, non-pesticide, non-GMO foods, although desirable, are an unaffordable luxury.

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Since is a symptom of heart disease, we wanted to make an entertaining but educational video to spread the word that a whole-food, plant-based diet can improve sexual function much the same way it improves high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type-2 diabetes.

The video features Dr. Mason, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Rip Esselstyn, Ruth Heidrich, and more!

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