Wondering about how to stick to a diet? As an experienced nutritionist, I often saw people get excited about their new diet only to go off track after a few weeks or months. I realized there are four main reasons why people quit. They either lack planning, set their goals poorly, don’t have proper support or don’t know how to recover from setbacks. I put together a list of tips on how to prevent these things from happening. Let’s start with planning.
Set yourself up for success
Do you have a good idea about what you’re going to eat this week for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks? If the answer is ‘not really’ then you have a high chance of going off rails. It’s important to know how to improvise around food. You can’t always have a plan. Things go wrong. But that’s exactly why you need at least some planning for when things are going well. If you keep improvising for all your meals, you will be tempted, you will get lazy, and your diet will suffer.
Find healthy recipes that taste great
The first step is to identify what you like to eat that fits into your diet. There are many different diets out there that can be good for you. But you always have to select the types of meals that you will enjoy to eat. Otherwise, it’s not going to work long term. Here is some inspiration for you to get you started.
You can check out our previous articles with breakfast recipes that are great for any active cyclist out there. We also included some video recipes for simple lunches that taste great but don’t take too long to make. If you’re after something truly delicious and healthy, our dinner recipes are the right choice. And if you want to avoid meat, we have some vegetarian suggestions too.
Plan your snacks too
Let’s not forget about snacks. Snacking can ruin your diet if you don’t stay on top of it. Most popular snacks like chocolate bars, candy or cookies are full of sugar and calories. You have to surround yourself with better options so it’s easy to reach for a healthy snack. Here are our tips for some nibble foods that will do the trick. And if you feel like making something for yourself, check out our snack recipes for cyclists.
Shopping list examples
Now that you have a better idea of what types of meals and snack you want to include in your diet, you can take things to the next level with shopping lists! Having all the ingredients you need at home will make it so much easier and so much more likely that you will eat well. Check out our shopping list for the low carb diet, vegetarian diet, and weight loss diet if you want some real-world inspiration.
Know how to order in restaurants
It’s not all about home cooking. We all eat out sometimes and that’s absolutely fine. Restaurant meals can easily fit into your diet, too. If you’re going there to celebrate your birthday, go wild. Have whatever you want, it’s only once a year. But if it’s supposed to be your work lunch or a regular dinner, you need to come to the restaurant with a set of rules to stick to your diet. Here are a few suggestions.
• Don’t order sweetened drinks
• Order a main course with protein (eggs, tempeh, beans, peas, cheese, meat)
• Get an extra salad with your main course or a vegetable soup
• Avoid deep-fried options on the menu
• Treat desserts as special occasions only
It doesn’t take much to have a basic plan in place. Think about these tips and techniques and you will have a much better concept of how to stick to a diet. The next article will be all about setting goals.
