Building Healthy Eating Habits

What is the best diet?

Is it low-fat? Low-carb? Paleo? Keto? Vegetarian? Mediterranean? And while it would be easier if there was The One Diet to Rule Them All, unfortunately, there isn’t one. What a bummer! We like easy answers, but life so rarely works out that way.

This is the fourth entry in the Healthy Meals for Homeschoolers series. You can find the entire series at this link.

So what is the best diet? The one that includes enough safe and nutritious food for people to live healthy, actives lives. The best diet for you and your family is the one that works with your health goals, budget, culture, and preferences. A healthy diet is one of the benefits that supports a healthy and happy home. And there’s no one way it should look!

If you are looking to eat healthier, try to make small, incremental changes to improve your health. And the changes you make should be those which you can imagine doing for the rest of your life. It is important to make healthy habits you can stick with in the long-run.

SMART Goals

One approach to making small, incremental changes is to set SMART goals. SMART stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-sensitive

Consider this SMART goal: for one month, eat at least one serving of fruits and/or vegetables at each meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). This goal is actionable. It specifies the healthy habit (eating fruits and vegetables). You can measure the outcome; you can write down the number of servings of fruits and vegetables you eat. Importantly, this goal is achievable. Depending on your current diet, it might be a stretch to add more fruits and vegetables, but it is definitely possible. The goal is realistic. There are endless varieties of fruits and vegetables you can incorporate into each meal. And it’s time-sensitive. You are going to do this for one month at each of your three main meals.

A SMART goal is a plan of action. It is clear enough that you can tell yourself “yes” you did it, or “no” no you did not. And you do not have to be perfect! It is achievable enough that you can miss a few meals and the “on-ramp” back to meeting the goal is pretty gentle.

Another great thing about SMART goals is the opportunity to turn these practices into habits. After a month of eating at least a serving of fruits and/or vegetables at each meal, you become more used to it. You know what you need to buy at the grocery store and which options work best for you. Once a healthy habit is established, it’s possible to take it to the next level and build more habits into your life.

Use This as an Opportunity to Teach Your Children

As a homeschooling parent, you are provided with additional opportunities to teach your children wisdom and valuable life skills, as they are spending more time with you in your day-to-day life. Building healthy eating habits and creating SMART goals are two skills that if your children learn at a young ate, they will be more likely to keep for the rest of their lives.

Enlightium Academy is a private Christian online school that serves homeschooling families by offering a Bible-based, flexible, accredited, teacher-supported, and affordable education from the comfort of your home. For any other questions about Enlightium, please call (509) 319-2288, or visit EnlightiumAcademy.com.