How to Stick to Your New Diet and Develop Healthy Habits

We all know that developing healthy habits and maintaining a proper diet will help us feel better and live longer. At the same time, we all know how difficult it can be to stick to a diet and make healthy choices on a daily basis.

What makes it so difficult to make a change and stick to it? For starters, it takes a lot longer to develop a habit than you might think. Researchers have found that it takes an average of66 days to turn a new behavior into a habit.

That’s a long time! Life is unpredictable and your days are busy. It’s not surprising that so many people struggle with maintaining a new diet when it takes over two months for it to become second nature.

But try not to get intimidated. We’ve all developed good habits one way or another over the years. You can make it happen again.

You’ve been in this position before. You’re right at the start of a new diet and you want to make it stick. What can you do differently this time?

There’s plenty that you can do to ensure you hit that 66-day mark and turn your healthy aspirations into healthy habits:

1. Be Realistic, but Set Goals

A nutritious diet has many benefits, including weight loss, but these benefits take time to come to fruition. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. It can be tempting to set lofty goals or to try and lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time, but that’s probably not the best idea.

Big plans and expectations are much more likely tobackfire. Not only can it be unhealthy to take on an extreme diet, but it can also be discouraging if you don’t see the results you want fast enough. 

It’s important to be realistic about your health goals and to manage your expectations. Going into it with the right frame of mind can make a world of difference.

At the same time, don’t be too casual about what you want to achieve. Develop a plan with reasonable goals as well as the direct actions you can take to move toward them. Also, make sure to plan for obstacles. What is most likely to derail your diet? How can you ensure you make healthy choices when things don't go according to plan?

Creating a good foundation to build healthy habits on will help keep you on the path to success.

2. Motivation Isn’t (Always) Your Friend

Don’t get it twisted. Motivation is essential to achieving anything, including a healthier lifestyle. However, we all know that there will be days when your motivation is nowhere to be found. Not long after you begin your journey, some of your motivation will wear off and you'll need other methods to keep you on track.

If people only did things when they were motivated, then most things would never be completed. The same goes for your diet. Don't just assume the motivation will stick around. Anticipate the days of low motivation and develop strategies for getting through them. 

3. Educate Yourself

If your goal is to make your body healthier, it’s important to know what you’re putting in it. Too often, we eat or drink things we think are healthy only to later find out that we were misled. Or, maybe your diet is good but it could be better. 

Learning about your body and the foods you’re putting in it will make the dieting process much easier. If you’re trying out a specific diet, do as much research as you can to learn its benefits and limitations. If there are different variants - like there are withintermittent fasting - determine which one is best for you.

You’ll never regret knowing more about your body and your diet, and this extra knowledge could be what keeps you on track.

4. Understand Your Habits

Engaging in repetitive behaviors will create habits that are difficult to change. Most of the time, the habits we develop happen automatically and without much thought.

Depending on what your habits are, you may need to unlearn some in order to reach the full potential of your diet. If you want to rid yourself of an unhealthy habit, you must first create an awareness of it. Determine patterns in your behavior and identify any triggers.

Then, figure out ways to disrupt these triggers or at least avoid them. This is an important step. It’s difficult enough to develop healthy habits, but even more so if you’re still holding on to unhealthy behaviors.

5. Plan Ahead

It's usually not too difficult to fall into a healthy routine during the week. Weekdays tend to be more structured and predictable, so you can implement a diet strategy and stick to it.

But what do you do when you can’t follow your routine? Too often, things like going out to eat or taking a vacation can throw a wrench in plans. It’s nearly impossible to stop going out to eat at least on occasion. It’s nice to not have to cook and restaurants are common meeting places for friends and family.

And you should never give up your vacations just because they make it difficult to follow a schedule. It’s good to get away sometimes.

As long as you plan ahead, you can make it work. Research restaurants to ensure they have entrees that work with your diet, or maybe eat before so you can just get something small. 

With vacations, make sure to research supermarkets and restaurants ahead of time. You can also bring healthy foods with you to ensure you can stay on track.

6. Health Isn’t All or Nothing

No matter how well you plan, there will always be days that catch you off guard. Maybe you get suckered into having a dessert you don't need, or your schedule is so packed that you only have time to visit a drive-thru.

That's ok. Things like that are going to happen. And when they do happen, there's no need to overreact. One bad meal doesn't ruin an otherwise healthy day, nor does it undo all of your hard work. 

At the moment, it's easy for this misstep to feel like a big thing. But, in the grand scheme of things, it's not even going to be a blip on your radar. As long as you can move past these unplanned meals and get back to your diet, you’ll be just fine.

Plus, you can always use Smart Pressed Juice’sPineapple Chia Cleanse to gently remove waste from unhealthy eating. This unique blend of superfoods and fiber is exactly what you need to keep cravings under control.

7. Diet With a Friend

Diet and exercise can be difficult to maintain alone, but having a partner or a friend alongside you can increase accountability and keep you going. When you and another person have similar goals, you can build each other up and support each other when the going gets tough. 

Having a diet buddy can especially be helpful if that person is aspouse or partner. It can even be beneficial to join a group online that shares a similar goal, like theSmart Pressed Juice Facebook group. 

8. Get What You Need, When You Need It

Planning out your diet is time-consuming. It takes time to shop for the foods and ingredients you need, and it takes even more time to prepare healthy meals. When life is busy to begin with, adding extra steps to your day can make maintaining a healthy lifestyle difficult.

The good news is that Smart Pressed Juice has your back. We offersubscription options for all of our products, so you can get them when you need them without having to worry about running to the store or placing a new order online. 

Try ourMaintenance Package, which helps you maintain your health each day with three simple steps. This package will help you conquer your cravings, get the nutrients you need, and promotes proper digestion.

Combine your subscription with oursimple and delicious recipes to ensure you hit that 66-day mark and turn your diet into a healthy habit that you can maintain with ease.

For more SMART lifestyle tips like this, visithttp://www.smartpressedjuice.com and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or like us on Facebook. You can also visit our Amazon store to stock up on our delicious juices.

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