While we can assume that adopting a whole food diet would be best for our health, that doesn’t mean there aren’t obstacles to implementing one.
Processed foods have a lot going for them, which makes it easy to push whole foods to the side far too often.
Processed foods are found everywhere, they are easy to prepare, and they seem, at least on the surface, to cost less than whole food meals might.
What if, however, the only solid truth on that list is that they are found everywhere?
What if processed foods do not have to be easier to prepare than whole foods (at least not so much easier that they gain any tangible advantage) and what if processed foods do not necessarily need to be cheaper?
Rewiring Our Minds to Be Excited About a Whole Food Diet, Even When it’s a Bore
Listen, many processed foods will never stop being delicious, so you can forget about rewiring your mind to think they’re not.
I write about health for a living but would still have a heck of a time looking a Hostess cupcake in the eye and turning it away.
The eye of a Hostess cupcake is the filling, for those of you trying to figure that one out.
There is a way, however, for us to rewire our minds to not only appreciate simple, whole food recipes prepared from scratch. And the way to do so is to keep our focus on the benefits of a whole food diet. Benefits that include:
- Inexpensive ingredients
- Easy to prepare (they can be surprisingly easy to prepare)
- Eliminate negatives from our diets
- Fuel our life’s pursuits rather than hinder them
Once we rewire our minds to define our whole food diet in terms of its greatest benefits, including seeing how it can advance us in all areas of our lives, it quickly becomes exciting to pursue.
Even when it’s boring.
Now let’s get into it some more.
1. A Whole Food Diet can be VERY Inexpensive
Let me give you an example of one of my favorite recipes from my own life. A recipe that is so ridiculously simple, so ridiculously inexpensive, and, although it also may be so ridiculously unimpressive, it is packed with amazing whole food nutrition.
Often times I will make this simple recipe for lunch. As you’ll see, this is very easy to scale up and batch prep if you’re into that sort of thing.
Here are the simple, cost-effective ingredients that make a satiating, nutritious lunch:
- 1/2 cup white rice (VERY inexpensive)
- 1/2 container chicken stock, or four cups (couple dollars from Target)
- 3-4 eggs (super inexpensive)
- 1 can tuna fish (optional)
How simple is this? Cook the rice in the chicken stock in one pot, and cook up eggs however you like in the other (I like scrambled). Mix them together and add some tuna fish if you like (I like) and a little salt and pepper to taste.
Done. Easy peasy. And loaded with healthy fats, proteins, and easily digestible carbs. Not to mention delicious.
This ingredient list comes out to a little over three dollars if your ingredients are conventional, and well under two if you omit the tuna fish.
2. A Whole Food Diet can be Easy to Prepare
Even someone with zero cooking skills like me can make a simple, delicious, nutritious, cost-effective meal at home. I’m sure you can do even better.
How simple is the above meal example?
The only downside to preparing meals this simple is that my cooking skills don’t really improve that much. But when you eat as simply as I do, you only really need a couple skills anyway.
The fact of the matter is, this serves as a great example of both an inexpensive meal as well as an easy to prepare meal. One that serves as a simple base that can easily be expanded upon to branch out into much more interesting dishes.
Think about how creative you can get, while maintaining ease of preparation, with just a few simple whole food ingredients in different combinations:
- Rice
- Vegetables
- Ground Meat
- Seasonings
You can make who-knows-how-many different variations from this simple list of inexpensive, easy to prepare foods.
You can cook your rice in water, broths, with or without seasonings, etc.
You can choose any number of different vegetables to suit your tastes. You can go on the sweeter side with vegetables like carrots and peas, or on the more savory side with vegetables like peppers and onions.
You can choose from many inexpensive ground meats, or use something like canned chicken or fish to save on costs.
Add in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil for some more healthy fats as well.
Or, if you’re like me, you can add some giardiniera to…well pretty much everything.
(Don’t know what giardiniera is? You poor, poor thing! I’ll say a little prayer for you while I’m eating some tonight.)
The fact is, many of these ingredients are not even measured in dollars per serving. Some are measured in cents per serving.
Of course, if you’d like to spend more, you can. But the point is you can make just about anything with extreme ease and want with inexpensive whole food ingredients like rice, frozen vegetables, and cost-conscious meats.
And once you get your creative juices flowing, you can expand this simple formula into an entire restaurant menu worth of dishes if you’d like.
3. A Whole Food Diet Eliminates the Negatives
Most important might be what is not in the whole food diet.
And that is any ingredient that you cannot pronounce or is not actual food.
The whole food diet comes from only real food, direct from nature, fit for human consumption.
By eating this way, you eliminate any potentially toxic foods from your diet. Yes, your body is extremely resilient and powerful and can handle a lot of toxic, or less-than-optimal, foods with aplomb.
But that doesn’t mean it’s the best idea.
When you consume “non-foods”, or foods that were formerly foods that have been processed into something your body does not like all that much, like seed oils and high-fructose corn syrup, you begin playing from behind.
Your body then needs to play defense instead of offense, dealing with these less-than-beneficial ingredients, spending energy and resources keeping you safe, protected, and functioning properly.
When you eliminate those ingredients, however, your body can spend more of its energy taking things up a notch. Using and assimilating the nutrients you feed it to not just function and get by, but to start to maximize its potential.
Which brings us to the main benefit of the whole food diet.
4. A Whole Food Diet Fuels Our Greatest Pursuits
Once you rewire your mind to focus on the benefits of the whole food diet and what it can do for you, it frees you to focus more on your ambitions and goals for your future, with your mind freshly renewed to focus on what serves you best.
When you rewire your mind to focus on optimizing your diet to serve you best, your optimization does not stop there. Your mind is really rewired to focus on optimizing you, which means you will naturally start to optimize all other areas of your life as well.
Your mind is now wired to serve you, not sabotage you.
You may start to find yourself taking advantage of, discovering, or even creating opportunities, where you hadn’t considered them before.
You may find your performance in all areas of your life starts to become enhanced, with greater drive and motivation to achieve the most you can out of your situation and realize your best self, whatever that looks like.
As all of this happens, you may find that you to appreciate your whole food diet and enjoy it even more. This then results in a beautiful cycle where your diet creates greater joy in and appreciation for your pursuits, while your appreciation and joy in your pursuits creates greater joy in and appreciation for your diet.
And on and on the beautiful cycle goes.
So, if you haven’t already, perhaps it’s time to rewire your mind to appreciate a whole food diet. Not just for the good of your health, but for the good of you.
And if you need a boost in rewiring your mind to do this, or in any other area of your life that you would like to improve or change for the better, you will love my new book Power Words.
Really. This was not just a long pitch for the book.
Power Words helps you unlock the key to using affirmations to change your life for the better in an almost innumerable number of areas. You can take back control over your mind, your thoughts, your identity, and your future today. And Power Words can help you do that.
Whether it is to rewire your mind to appreciate and adopt a better diet that serves you better, or to improve any number of other areas of your life.
It is inexpensive and an easy read, as well as right to the point, so you can get started today. It’s also absolutely free to read on Kindle Unlimited. If you think it might be right for you, click here to get your copy today.
And thank you for taking the time to be here today!
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