If we haven't paid attention to our diets in years, making all the necessary changes for optimal health can be daunting. It’s a lot of work to shop for different foods, to find new recipes and to revamp your whole diet at once.
When people have a chronic health condition, especially one that involves pain, it is ALWAYS something that can be improved through diet. I found a lot of success in simply changing one thing at a time. Through my research on inflammation, I discovered that a lot of the pain from fibromyalgia and arthritis could be reduced through diet changes. That is all well and good, but I was WAY too tired to figure out a whole new meal plan and a whole new way of shopping.
That wasn’t the only hurdle. It took time to adjust to new flavours and new foods. Not only did I have to adjust, so did my husband and three kids.
Here are five strategies I successfully used to revamp our family diet.
1) Only remove ONE item at a time. Just one. That is it!! It doesn’t matter if you choose coffee, sugar, gluten or dairy… ALL of these are often problematic for inflammation or pain. So pick just one… because it is very hard to go gluten free and dairy free if you are having coffee jitters or sugar cravings at the same time! The chance that you will stay the course increases with just one food as well.
2) Remove that food for at least 21 days before selecting a second one. Your brain needs 21 days to form a new habit. If you are not ready to remove another food after 21 days, give yourself another cycle of practice with the previous one. It takes 3 cycles of 21 days to make those habits stick. If you are anything like I was, you have a lifetime of bad food habits. You do not need to make all the changes in one season. (That’s just dumb! 🤪)
3) Before removing a food, take the time to find options!! If you are going to drink green or herbal tea instead of coffee, add that tea into your diet BEFORE you make the full switch. If you are going gluten free, purchase gluten free options and find a bunch that you LOVE prior to making that switch. That way, you are not eating new foods and removing a food all in the same day.
4) Let your family know in advance and enlist their support. Changes go much easier if you have people around you that are on board to encourage and support you.
5) Talk to a friend who has gone down this journey. They will be your best helper!! They will have jumped the same hurdles, had the same struggles and they can listen and guide you when things get rough.
Above all, be KIND to yourself. If you fall off the wagon, simply start over the next day. Remember your goal and think of this as a mis-step rather than some catastrophic failure. It’s a journey and you will reach your goal one step at a time.
If you are truly interested in changing your life, and in taking many small achievable steps to improve pain and fatigue levels and small steps to lessen sensitivities to food and airborne items, please join my health minded community.
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