If you’re looking for a 7-day meal plan, you won’t find that here. If you’re looking for a tried-and-true method of changing what you eat, how you think about food and the confidence you have in yourself…you’re in the right place. Welcome to the last Healthy Eating Challenge you’ll ever need.

Healthy eating: choosing and consuming a variety of food that leave you feeling energized and satisfied. It’s a multi-faceted equation that involves everything from your personal tastes, to your fitness goals, to your health history, to your gene pool, to your beliefs about sustainability and beyond.

What’s most notable about true healthy eating (at least to me as a nutrition coach and lifelong fitness-fanatic), is what isn’t part of the equation: guilt, hunger, obsessive counting, fear.

And yet…those are the things that whirl around our brains as we choose what to eat for lunch.

The diet struggle is real. But it doesn’t have to be.

Eating for Energy

The first part of the equation is about the science behind food. This is where macros and calories come in to play. This is where the phrase “food is fuel” comes from.

Your body breaks down macronutrient calories into usable energy. That energy fuels your day: from eating to breathing, lifting weights to going for a run, having sex to making dinner. Your body requires energy.

But there is more to the story than macros and calories being used as “fuel”.

Your genetics, sex and health history play a role in just how your body breaks down food into energy. And quite frankly, you don’t have much control over that.

Yet again, this is where we focus most of our time and energy: the piece of the puzzle we can’t control.

Eating for Satisfaction

The second part of the equation is about, well, You.

Healthy eating isn’t just about the what. It’s about the why and the how. Your taste buds prefer certain flavors over others. You have memories that connect certain foods to certain feelings and moments in time. You have cultural preferences, religious preferences, beliefs about where food comes from and how it should be raised or made.

This part of the equation is equally as important as the science.

Which is why this 10-Day Health Eating Challenge has less to do about counting calories in and increasing the burn and more about you’re connection to food.

The Struggle is Real

I can’t tell you when the switch flipped for me, but flip it did. One day I was eating a Hot Pocket before 3 hours of gymnastics practice or flying through the KFC drive-thru for potato wedges before volleyball practice. Some day after that I was counting the calories in a bowl of cereal and food-shaming myself into throwing half of it away.

I grew up fortunate. My mom never let us leave for school without a hot breakfast in our stomachs. There was always a delicious meal on the table at dinner time. Those memories for me aren’t connected to the food or how I felt about the food…those memories are about who sat around the table, who laughed first, who had to do the dishes. I didn’t think about macros, or calories, or good food vs. bad food. It was either a quesadilla or it wasn’t.

Like every single woman I know, I lost that “food innocence” sometime after childhood. I learned about dieting, and burning calories, and avoiding certain foods. Just a year into college shifted my focus from eating to eat and enjoy to eating to be skinny.

I told myself it was about fitness – I didn’t have gymnastics and volleyball in my daily routine anymore so I turned to running and excessive workouts. I turned to calorie counting and restriction. “Healthy eating” was my mis-guided excuse for not eating.

I thought I knew what I was doing.

I definitely didn’t.

My disordered eating habits spiraled out of control into an eating disorder. I spent the next few years of my life simultaneously counting every calorie and trying to forget about them. I battled the voice in my head (that I still call ED to separate myself from it), trying to find some joy at my parent’s dinner table that could possibly drown out the fear.

Those battles taught me a lot about myself, about food, about diet culture and about what sort of education and support is missing for girls and women all over the globe.

It’s that struggle that brought me to nutrition coaching. Because I know that the girl I was isn’t/wasn’t alone.

Which brings us both here to this discussion about the what, but more importantly the why and how, of what healthy eating looks like and feels like for you.

This challenge is in no way designed as a way to cure or treat disordered eating. If you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder please reach out for help. Use this link to contact a volunteer via text, call or chat.

YOUR 7-DAY HEALTHY EATING CHALLENGE

…starts here.

It’s simpler than Keto. Easier to understand than IIFYM. It’s less involved than counting calories. This Challenge is about building on a foundation. Each day you’ll focus on a new skill – one that builds on the previous day(s) skills. If you feel rushed, feel free to slow down and spend an extra day or two on any given skill!

It’s time to re-create your relationship with food. Take a few minutes to consider the following questions before you dive into Day 1:

1. What is food for you?
2. What would you like food to be for you?

Think big. I hope you are starting to recognize that you have a say in the matter. You get to choose. That’s a powerful place to start.

Day 1: Build Awareness

The moment you commit (like in the pit of your stomach C.O.M.M.I.T.), awareness is heightened. You start paying attention to things you didn’t pay attention to before.

Damn, I don’t actually need to snack on those peanuts while making dinner.

I didn’t realize how fast I could go through a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Who knew that finishing the food on your kids’ plates amounts to THAT much?!

Take it a step further on Day 1 by starting a meal journal.

Use an app like MyFitnessPal, or a template like this Meal Journal worksheet I made for you, to track your food and drink intake as you go. What I like about the Meal Journal template is that it leaves room for notes (like whether you were at home or out to eat, feeling rushed or about to start your period). It also leaves room to mark down the time and place that you ate.

This information can tell you a lot about what you eat but it also gives you some clues into the why and how. You’ll start to discern patterns. For example:

• you can’t stop yourself from reaching for salty, carb-y snacks like pretzels and chips around 3pm, especially when you are at work or didn’t eat breakfast.
  
• all you can think about are peanuts and French fries if you haven’t had enough water through out the day.
  
• you NEED chocolate when you have your period.

Most of the time these kinds of cravings aren’t by accident. As you start to become aware of what you eat, what you don’t eat, and what kind of effect that has on the rest of your day/mood, you can take preventative action. You eventually figure out how to break the craving-snack cycle.

Day 2: Eat Distraction Free

How many hats do you wear in any given day? Your chef hat, your chauffer cap, your nurse cap, the hat your wear to work, your referee-your-children’s-squabbles cap…Do you have a hat that you wear when you can take a deep breath and have a moment to yourself? What’s that called?

It all comes back to awareness. Distracted eating is mindless eating. You eat in the car, paying more attention to the road than what goes in your mouth. You eat while scrolling through social media, while watching TV, while answering work emails.

We multi-task to get things done. I do it. You do it. We all do it.

Why is it a problem?

When you stop paying attention and start shoveling mindlessly, you miss important cues: hunger cues, fullness cues, stomach-doesn’t-like-this-food cues. It’s why you can devour an entire box of popcorn at the movie theatre in the span of a couple of hours, only to wonder why you feel like a buttery, bloated salt-lick afterwards!

Eating distraction free gives you the chance to a) slow down and take a breath and b) enjoy each bite of your food. Pay attention to how your meal looks, smells, and tastes. Give yourself a moment to feel hungry, to feel full, and to appreciate the food in front of you.

You might even find it’s easier to remember what you had for breakfast if you pay attention while you eat it!

Day 3: Slow Down, Increase Satisfaction

Better digestion, increased satisfaction, easier weight management. The benefits of eating slowly are powerful. Yet most of us finish our food in the blink of an eye!

It’s no wonder, really. We’re a distracted, too-busy, endlessly rushed people with too much to do and not enough time to do it.

It takes 20 minutes for your brain to sense that your stomach is full and send the signal to stop eating. When was the last time you took 20 minutes to eat?! Instead we power through like we’re got more places to be than Oprah and don’t realize we’re stuffed until we’re unbuttoning our jeans.

Search through the following strategies and choose one that makes the most sense to your lifestyle. Apply them today!

• Set a timer. Set a timer the next time you sit down to eat. Use that as a baseline. Add 2-3 minutes to your meal time every few meals and try not to finish your food before it goes off. Work your way up (slowly) to 20 minutes!
  
• Put your fork down between bites. Make a conscious effort to do something in between bites. Whether it’s putting your utensils down or taking a sip of water, it might feel surprisingly awkward at first but the action forces you to slow down, finish chewing and enjoy your meal.
  
• Pace yourself to the slowest eater at the table. There’s always one person at the table who seems to take for.ev.er to finish their meal. Pace yourself to that person. Maybe it’s the person who talks to much. Or maybe it’s your kids (kids haven’t yet learned the adult habit of having too much to do to eat). Try not to finish before they do.

Day 4: Do a Kitchen Makeover

This isn’t the HGTV Kitchen Makeover edition. This is the Set Yourself Up For Success kind of makeover.

Think about a snack food that makes you feel like you have no control in it’s presence. Peanut M&Ms, Cape Cod chips, Reese’s Cup…If that food wasn’t in your house when you reached for it at when a craving hit, would you run to the grocery store to get it?

No. (I live in the middle of a Vermont mountain so that’s a hard no for sure).

You’d move on. Maybe you’d even grab an apple, or a yogurt instead.

That’s what Kitchen Makeovers are all about: making the healthier food decision craving-proof.

Use this Kitchen Makeover Checklist to throw out all of the food that triggers a craving, leads you down a mindless eating rabbit hole, or simply doesn’t belong in your healthy diet. Replace the holes in your refrigerator and pantry with healthier options.

p.s. Use this Healthy Eating Grocery List to restock the shelves!

p.p.s. There are other people living in your house that might freak out if you throw out the Peanut Butter Fudge Ben & Jerry’s. I get it. I’ve got a husband. But keep in mind that if it isn’t healthy enough to belong in YOUR diet, do you really want your loved ones eating it? Get them involved in the processed. Share your why. Help them understand how this will help you be healthier and happier and in turn, how that will help them be healthier and happier too!

Day 5: 80% Full

Despite being a full grown adult who can take herself out to brunch, buys her own cleaning supplies and makes her own doctors appointments…it’s kind of hard to figure out what full feels like.

Most of our eating routines revolve around habit and social norms:

• Time restraints: your lunch break is from noon to noon-thirty whether you are hungry or not.
  
• Guilt: your parents were part of the clean plate club, they taught you to be part of the clean plate club, you teach your children to be part of the clean plate club…
  
• Social pressures: it’s your best friends birthday and it would be rude not to eat cake.
  
• The need for comfort: yes your full of dinner but there’s always room for dessert!

We’ve taught ourselves to react to food rather than make conscious decisions.

But you’ve spent a couple of days now slowing down and eating distraction free which leaves you with a solid jumping off point for this next focus: stopping at 80% full, before you’re uncomfortably stuffed.

You know what really hungry feels like. You skipped breakfast (and maybe lunch too). Now you can’t focus on anything but your grumbling stomach and who cares if you don’t like bologna, that’s all that’s available to eat!

You know what really stuffed feels like. That second piece of pie (pumpkin or pecan?), after two helpings of Thanksgiving dinner.

What does 80% feel like?

Here’s how to find out.

Pull out your meal journal and keep it with you. Before you start eating, rate your hunger level between 1 (not hungry at all) and 10 (stuffed to the gills). Rate your hunger level again after you’ve finished. You’ll start to recognize the physical and emotional sensations that signal “full”.

Use your observations, and your practice of eating slowly and distraction free, to put your fork and knife down before you reach the overly stuffed, almost sick feeling of level 10.

*This is what it means to “listen to your body”.

Day 6: Practice Portion Control

I told you at the start that healthy eating isn’t about counting calories and I stand by that claim now.

First of all, calorie counts on packaging is legally permitted by the FDA to be up to 20% off the mark. On top of that, how big is a medium apple? How much of that kale does your body actually absorb? Did you fry it or boil it? Are you really going to carry a scale around with you?

What I’m getting at is – calorie counts are imprecise, humans notoriously bad at “eye-balling” portion sizes and nobody wants to carry a food scale around with them unless they’re being paid millions to look like Wonder Woman.

Enter: Hand-Size Portion Control.

Why it works: your hand is proportionate to your body and the size never really changes after adulthood. It’s also with you at all times and it just so happens that the size of your hand (parts of it) correlate really well to how much protein, carbohydrate and fat your body requires for a healthy, balanced diet.

How it works: use these measurements as a starting point:

• 1 serving of protein = the size of your palm
• 1 serving of carbohydrate = what would fit in your cupped palm
• 1 serving of fat = the size of your thumb
• 1 serving of veggies = the size of your fist

Build your plate by picking 1 serving of each food group. Start out with 4-6 servings of each food group each day. The more active you are, the more you need. You’ll adjust according to how full you feel and what kind of goals you have (i.e. if you want to build muscle, you might start by adding 1/2 a portion of protein).

Day 7: Conquer Your Cravings

It would be unethical of me to tell you that you can conquer your cravings in a single day. It takes time. But you CAN get the ball rolling, create momentum away from your craving attacks and start taking back control of snack time.

The first piece of the puzzle is of course, knowing when you are experience a craving and when you are justifiably hungry. Since you’ve been paying more attention to what you eat, how fast you eat and how full you feel this past week, you are more aware now of what constitutes real hunger and what constitutes a craving.

Just in case though, here are a couple of ways to know that what you are feeling is actually a craving:

• You want something very specific. If your hungry, any food will do. If you are craving, nothing will satisfy you but a bite of that food.
  
• You have the same craving every day at the same time.
  
• It goes a way after a while.

Stop there. You’ve reached the part where you find a new skill to practice. Today, you give your cravings a time out.

The next time you have the urge to grab a handful of [input food here], sit with it. Don’t ignore it. Pay attention to it! Take 15 minutes, sip on a glass of water and wait it out.

Meanwhile ask yourself a series of questions:

1. Am I actually hungry? When did you last eat? Was it a balanced meal? Did you workout today?
   
2. Will broccoli cut it, or does it have to be pretzels/a donut/popcorn?
   
3. Am I hungry or am I thirsty? We often mistake thirst for hunger.
   
4. What are my options?

If after 15 minutes your stomach is still growling, you’ve evaluated the situation and turns out you really are hungry, go ahead and have a snack! That isn’t failure. That’s CONFIDENCE.

Consider this Healthy Eating Challenge the launching point of all good food moves to come. Repeat the whole challenge or pick the days/skills that felt the most transformative to you and practice them as often as you’d like. Even the healthiest eaters on the planet can benefit from a refresh now and again!