Five Simple tips to improve your diet and eating habits
It’s 2025, and you still haven’t lost the weight you wanted to in 2010. You may have lost it temporarily in 2011, 2015, and 2019, but you’ve gained it back and then some. It’s so common: nearly 50% of people try to lose weight each year, but only 1-3% of them keep it off long term. Why is it so hard to lose weight and keep it off? Why do so many people struggle? I believe it’s mainly linked to our poor food choices and eating habits. Both of which are also linked to increasing rates of digestive disorders, mental health disorders, and exponentially increasing rates of chronic disease.
What’s causing our poor diet?
Ultra Processed foods
Ultra processed foods - foods that require “ultra” processing to become edible. Foods like canola oil and other seed oils, white breads and other baked goods, brown rice and other grains, food products that come in a box or bag at the grocery store. These are just some of the heavily processed foods that are making up a large percentage of the Standard American Diet - abbreviated as SAD which is exactly what our diet is: sad. The average American adults (19 or older) diet is 53% ultra processed foods, and the average American child’s diet is nearly 62% ultra processed foods.
Diets high in anti-nutrients
This point kind of goes along with the ultra processed diet point. Ultra processed foods are commonly high in anti-nutrients, but it’s not just ultra processed foods. Most people that are trying to improve their diet tend to lean on whole foods that are very high in anti-nutrients, think: raw vegetables, nuts and seeds, tomato products, most starchy foods, and gluten-filled and gluten-free breads. These are just some of the high anti-nutrient foods that make up a large portion of “healthy” foods people eat when they want to improve their diet.
Food addictions
Food addiction is predicted to be around 14-20% in the U.S. which is comparable to alcohol (14%) and tobacco (18%) abuse. This is a major problem and it is something I believe more people struggle with than the statistics account for. I, myself, struggled with this for years not knowing I had a problem. I never struggled with weight so I didn’t think I could have a food addiction, but it soon manifested itself as GERD - gastroesophageal reflux disease - which is a stomach and throat disease that causes acid to regurgitate into one’s throat. Ironically, this condition caused my stomach to lower its acid production which causes indigestion, nausea, bloating, and poor bowel motility.
And it took years of undiagnosed food addiction, as well as some of the other issues listed, to cause this GERD. It’s not just something that happens at random, the root was my behavior. Sugar is one of the main drivers of food addiction, this was the case for me, but it can also be highly-palatable ultra processed foods or takeout. This is very challenging to overcome and that’s why most people never overcome it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t. I did and know it’s possible.
Poor eating habits
It’s not just about what you eat, it’s also about how, when, and where you eat. These factors aren’t as important as what you’re eating, but they play a major role in your ability to improve what you are eating.
How do you eat? Do you chew your food? Do you eat really fast? Not chewing is super common and often leads to fast eating. Our stomach and brain take roughly 20-minutes to communicate that we are satisfied with the amount we have eaten. If you eat faster than this signal is communicated, you often overeat and “stuff” yourself.
When you eat relates more to how often you eat. Are you eating from the moment you get up until the moment you go to bed? Are you eating every hour? These habits are both connected to poor digestion which can lead to digestive disorders down the road. This also means snacking, sorry!
Where you eat is a bit more nuanced. For example, if you eat while watching TV on the couch, you tend to eat more since your mind is distracted by the TV. This ties into the stomach-brain connection, if we focus our attention on entertainment instead of what we are eating, we stint that signal.
ignorance around food
I think most people really just have no clue, and it’s not really their fault. I had zero clue what I was doing was slowly breaking down my body. It took me suffering with indigestion, nausea, acid reflux, headaches, constipation, and stomach pain for a year before I started to even figure out which direction was remotely right. And to this day, I still am refining my diet to help figure out what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t.
In my case, going to the doctor gave me little to no answers. The first two doctors didn’t even give me any nutritional guidance, just a pill. The third doctor at least gave me a diet handout, then a 4 month supply of a PPI (proton pump inhibitor) medication that says on the bottle “Do not take for more than two weeks at a time.” You can probably guess, I didn’t take that medication. So I had to do all of the nutrition research on my own, then had to experiment and find out what worked for me. It was exhausting, but in the end, I’m so thankful for that blessing in disguise. I am now empowered to find answers to the root problem without needing someone to tell me. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t hate doctors, I just think they are taught to diagnose conditions and prescribe corresponding medications. They aren’t taught how to determine root causes and prescribe lifestyle changes.
Here’s what you can do to improve your diet:
Eat whole foods
This is the simplest, yet most effective tip you will ever hear in regards to improving every conceivable health marker. Just whole foods. Nothing in packages, boxes, or bags. If it can be grown in your garden, caught in the sea, or found in a farmyard pasture, it’s fair game. Again, this may sound simple, but this tip is life changing. Whole, natural foods are what we evolved to eat. We were never meant to consume ultra processed foods, our bodies don’t even recognize them as actual food.
Whole, natural foods have these natural limiters that tell our body we are satisfied - things like protein and fiber tell our body when it’s time to stop eating. Whereas ultra processed foods have been genetically modified to ignore this mechanism, leading us to consume more and more calories. Studies on ultra processed diets show that people on average consume 500 more calories per day than someone who eats a whole food based diet. 500 calories is the difference between weight loss, maintenance, or weight gain. Pretty crazy, no wonder nearly 75% of Americans are overweight.
The best whole food diet templates, written in increasing level of restrictiveness, are: the Whole30 diet, the Paleo diet, and the Animal-based diet. You don’t need to follow a diet though as long as you are just eating whole foods.
Snack less
This is another simple tip to reduce your daily calorie consumption. Think about cows, how do they maintain their massive bodies? They eat all day long. Ironically, they eat a vegan diet, too. Not to crap on any vegans, but I’m just saying. When a cow eats mostly grass and hay, they typically stay relatively lean, but still massive. On the other hand, when a cow eats lots of grain, they get very fat - consequently, most human snacks tend to be heavily grain-based. Something to think about when it comes to consuming lots of grains in your diet.
But snacking as a habit is common across the board: most people snack all day long. We have turned into a grazer society (grazers are humans that eat for a majority of their existence - even if it’s just small amounts throughout the day). Snacking isn’t inherently bad, you can lose weight and still have snacks frequently, but it makes weight loss much more challenging. Think about it, when you are snacking, what are you usually having for a snack? It’s usually something ultra processed like pretzels or skittles or whatever. Like we talked about before, these foods are genetically engineered to make you overeat. And to add to that, you are often eating these snacks while distracted by your work computer, TV, or your smart phone which makes you even more likely to overeat.
From a digestion standpoint, when you are frequently snacking throughout the day, you never give your digestive tract time to rest. You are constantly pumping food through it. Did you know it takes 2 to 3 hours to digest your food fully? So if you snack after breakfast every 1-2 hours, that means the only break your stomach gets is while you are sleeping. This can lead to leaky gut, acid reflux, indigestion, and believe it or not, it can actually increase the likelihood of certain cancers.
Taking fasting breaks (longer periods of not eating) after meals allows your body to full digest and gives it more time to work on other processes in the body. If you put all of your energy into digestion, you won’t have much time for anything else!
Eat until you’re not hungry anymore, not until you’re stuffed
I struggled with this one for a long time. I grew up finishing what was on my plate. I never had leftovers. This wasn’t because I grew up in hard times and didn’t know when my next meal would be, I just always cleared my plate. But this is something that is so common in our society. Which is ironic, because we are a wasteful society in most regards.
Think about how you feel on thanksgiving when you finish your plate, you feel stuffed to the brim. That’s what I’m talking about, you aren’t satisfied, you are stuffed. This is not good for our digestion or health. Obviously, this can lead to overeating, but it also causes indigestion, gas and bloating, stomach pain, and acid reflux - which, by the way, is not good for us! Luckily, we can overcome this plate-clearing phenomenon by learning to be more aware of our body when we are eating.
Instead of barreling down on our food and eating as fast as possible, I want you to eat your food slowly and mindfully. Mindfulness is a lifechanging concept in every aspect of your life, but it’s extra important when it comes to food. Be mindful of every bite - taste and chew it, don’t just swallow it and shovel in the next. Some strategies to help you be more mindful when eating are: to eat in an undistracted environment - no cell phones or TVs; set your fork or spoon down between bites and only pick it up once you’ve chewed and swallowed the last bite; listen to your bodies signals - Am I still hungry? Am I satisfied? These three tips are simple and effective at teaching you to slow down your eating - it takes 20-minutes for our stomach to tell our brain that it is satisfied and no longer needs more food, how often do you take longer than 20-minutes to clear your plate? Probably not enough!
Prioritize protein
Protein is the most satisfying macronutrient. Carbohydrates and fats are much easier to overeat. Test this out for yourself, eat a high protein breakfast and see how long it takes you to feel hungry again. I do this regularly and some days I’m not hungry for 8 or more hours! This is because protein is vital for so many systems in our body that when we reach the threshold of protein required to satisfy those systems, our body sends a strong signal that we don’t need anymore. Fat produces a slightly weaker signal because it is a bit less important, and carbohydrates send little to no signal because they are actually non-essential. You can apply this principle by eating your protein first in each meal. For example, say you are having steak and mashed potato, eat the steak first, then the mashed potato. You’ll likely notice that you will eat less mashed potato when you eat the steak first.
Limit sugar
In animal studies, sugar has been shown to be more addictive than cocaine. I could honestly leave it right there and still get my point across. Sugar is naturally occurring in many natural foods like fruit, but nowadays we consume it by the tablespoon in coffees, energy drinks, sodas, sauces, take-out food, pastries, snacks, etc. We have exponentially increased our sugar consumption to the point of addiction. If I were to drop you on an island with access to all of the steak, eggs, and low-sugar, nutrient dense foods you want, you would suffer from sugar withdrawal. You would have immense cravings, anxiety, debilitating headaches, exhausting fatigue, irritability and brain fog, and in some cases fever and shaking! That’s how addicted we are. It’s literally like taking candy from a baby.
So how do we put an end to this sugar addiction? We limit our sugar. Now the easiest way to do that is to focus on following tip #1: eating whole foods. Again, some of these whole foods have naturally occurring sugar and that’s ok. I wouldn’t go crazy with some of these higher sugar, whole foods like fruit, honey, or maple syrup, but they can definitely be a part of a healthy diet. You can further limit sugar consumption by following the other four tips listed above.
Conclusion
As you can tell, we have some problems with our Standard American Diet (SAD). It’s high in ultra processed foods and anti-nutrients, we are addicted to these foods and have poor eating habits, and we are painfully ignorant about how our diet effects our health. But the good news is, you can change your diet for the better by eating whole foods, snacking less, listening to your body, prioritizing protein, and limiting sugar. Those five tips will drastically improve your diet, and ultimately, your health.
