food resolutions

With the arrival of the new year, the resolutions and resolutions to improve one’s own life or that of others also arrive.

In a large part of the cases, people propose resolutions that have to do with improving our lifestyle through diet and physical activity. In the best of cases, this has to do with the search for physical and mental well-being, but it is generally thought that this well-being would be achieved when a certain silhouette or body weight is reached.

Thus, those resolutions that include losing weight for an aesthetic canon, or simply, for wanting to enter a certain mold or pattern respond to this purpose.

It goes without saying that these types of resolutions are not sustainable in the long term, since lifestyle changes that include reprogramming habits must always be viewed as long-term benefits, which are achieved gradually, with the daily effort, but that can be maintained throughout a lifetime.

That is why crash diets or quick fixes are not sustainable in the long run. Generally, these results cause frustration, because the purposes not achieved generate a feeling of failure, or at least, that the year is always started with resolutions and ends up forgetting along the way what has been proposed.

This does not mean that in terms of food any proposed purpose is in vain. Simply, the goals and objectives must be achievable and measurable, and any change that we contemplate in our habits must be visualized as a practice that can be carried out throughout life.

If this is not possible, it is probably not a realistic goal. Therefore, considering that small actions have an impact on our future is the best way to visualize resolutions in food matters such as: avoiding food waste as much as possible, reducing the use of plastics in the food products we consume and making Local purchases are actions that have an environmental impact but also on the economy and our health.

In the same way, the actions that impact our well-being do not necessarily have a purpose focused on reducing body weight. Instead of this approach, a better way to visualize goals is to take small, long-term actions that can make us feel better.

An example of these actions is the resolution to take walks to clear the mind (with less measurement of time and effort and with greater enjoyment). Another way of proposing a better relationship with our diet is the practice of full awareness –known in English as mindfulness–, especially at mealtime, paying attention to the present moment, what you eat and who you eat with.

Trying to discover new flavors and ways of eating food, enjoying what you eat or even who you eat with. Although these small actions are probably not directly reflected in a drastic decrease in body weight or in following an aesthetic pattern.

However, these actions practiced on a daily basis can achieve greater individual well-being and have long-term social impacts that benefit not only one’s own well-being, but also a better disposition for actions that impact everyone’s future.