You Are Not Hungry.

Let me begin by saying that I am an advocate for food. I love eating. I especially love eating treats.

However, since this is a health blog, I feel like eating healthy is supposed to be good.

We, as Americans, have this nasty habit of eating food ALL THE TIME. Eat when we watch TV, eat when we do homework, eat when we do laundry... basically, we can't just do one thing at a time. We always have to do something and also eat. A party isn't a party without the food, right?

Like I said, I love food. I'll just reiterate that.

However, I saw something today that really made me laugh.

Whenever I don't have anything to do, my first instinct is always to eat. Always. I go look in my pantry for snacks, or my freezer for treats, or my fridge for milk. But most of the time, I'm not actually hungry. Eating excessively is a big part of the reason why we, as Americans, have a reputation for being obese.

I propose a solution. You don't have to cut out your snacking habits--you just have to buy more healthy snacks. Obviously, not too healthy, or you might go insane. But instead of a candybar after class (or work), eat a bowl of lightly salted popcorn or some grapes. Don't buy a lot of the candy, or you will eat it. (That's something I had to learn the hard way.)

As an added bonus, you probably won't get sighs from your dentist anymore. Two reputations saved with one simple lifestyle change.

Think Positive.

So, my roommate is a psychology major. She also loves to talk about psychology, and today she talked about the psychology of self-control. Whilst spouting off jargon and other stuff I don't really know about (she knows A LOT about psychology), she said a particular something I didn't know before that pertains to the general welfare and healthiness of the body.

Did you know that exerting self-control is physically taxing? Controlling urges and breaking habits not only puts a strain on your mind, oh no. It physically drains your body as if you were doing physical labor. 

So what does this mean? For me, it means that resisting the urge to put another handful of cheese in my chili is much harder than I thought.

I mean, think about. Have you ever thought about why it's so hard to break bad habits? Have you ever thought about why it's so hard to only have one scoop of ice-cream, or indulge in a bowl of fruit instead of a piece of raspberry cheesecake? How about why it's like you feel more tired just thinking about going to the gym?

Everyone in the whole world and their mothers are creatures of habit. Our bodies like to do what they've been doing, and they definitely don't like to change. It's our minds that change that. It's our minds that make our body do what we want.

However, in order to get your body to do what you want, you need more energy.

Sleep, a balanced diet, a healthy routine... once you are in the habit, it's all you want to do. But once you break the habit, it just makes you tired thinking about it. And now you know why.

In order to want to be healthy, you have to actually be healthy. Novel concept, right? Perhaps it will give you that much more motivation knowing that once you start, it's a scientific fact that you won't want to stop.