5 Food-Related Resolutions That Actually Work

It’s the New Year. Whoopee! Time to get busy with all those resolutions we talked about over holiday eggnog. Great, but how do we accomplish those lofty goals? By taking baby steps, baby!
If we’ve vowed to run a marathon this year, we wouldn’t just head out on day one and run 26 miles. So what do we do if we want to change the way we eat? Do we swear off fried food for eternity? Or resolve to never splurge on cheesecake again? Not likely, at least not in my world.
Just like the goal setting we use to train our bodies, we can incrementally raise the bar on our eating habits. Once you’ve retrained your brain you will crave wholesome, healthy food automatically — or at least 90 percent of the time.
Don’t set yourself up for failure by tackling all of the resolutions at once. Instead pick just one. Set a specific, measurable goal. I like to use a one-month measure; it is achievable and not too daunting. Once that change has become second nature, move on to the next.

Resolution #1: Ditch that daily artificially flavored soda or sugar-filled latte.

It would be a bit of a mournful process to relinquish your afternoon coffee/soda break. That is why it is best not to give it up, but rather replace it with something else. Today’s marketplace offers a superabundance of choices.
Flavored waters have come along way since Kool-Aid, thankfully, and drab Earl Gray is no longer the Grand Dame of teas. If you tried one alternative beverage and didn’t like it, well try some more! Check out this tasty water option, and also this take on tea.
After a mere month without your afternoon sugar fix, you will have saved yourself easily 4,000 calories and will have created a new food memory. Traditional soda will start to taste sickly sweet, those coffee drinks will taste like straight syrup and those extra calories can be replaced with real nutrition.

Resolution #2: When dining out, don’t treat the breadbasket as an appetizer.

Bread is not the anti-Christ, but eating four slices before your meal arrives is just a good way to ruin your dinner, plus pack on the calories. Politely ask the waiter to bring the bread with your entrée, not before.
If you want a piece of bread with dinner, by all means have at it. Be prepared however, to be completely over that yearning once your meal arrives. Somewhere between the pinot noir, the house salad and the pork loin chop, that breadbasket lost all of its early appeal. It’s sort of like the way your high school sweetheart became a distant memory once you entered college; basically, you’ve moved on.
Take a piece of bread to go if you feel cheated somehow, and have a slice with a nice hunk of cheese and an apple for lunch the next day.

Resolution #3: Give up fried foods.

This is a biggie. The second you tell yourself you will never experience the crunch of a deep-fried, fatty, crispy (insert food of your choice here — mine is onion rings), you are gonna crave that food like there’s no tomorrow. But, one month is doable. One month is not a lifetime — hell, it’s not even one-ninth of a pregnancy, or maybe for you guys one-sixth of the baseball season.
The next time you find yourself at the local pub, go ahead and order the hamburger if you want, but replace the fries with something else. Anything else, just as long as it isn’t fried. You just might come to find out that your local hangout serves the most amazing grilled vegetables or that that surly cook in the back makes a petite salad to die for.
Our bodies adapt over time. I still love onion rings, but now, one or two does the trick; I don’t even want a whole order.