The Only Healthy Eating Habit You Need

When it comes to weight-loss or nutrition, it’s tempting to stock up on silver bullets. After all, that’s why so many get-thin-quick schemes exist, and why Americans will spend more than 21 billion (yes, that’s billion, with a b) dollars on supplements this year.
Healthy eating is simple, but it’s not always easy. After all, it can take planning and forethought and willpower and all sorts of things that just aren’t as fun as making French Toast for breakfast every morning, or as easy as having someone hand you dinner through the window of your car.
I was discussing this very notion with my friend Heidi recently. Like me, Heidi is an Ironman triathlete. Also like me, Heidi had gotten off track with healthy eating habits during the offseason. Now that we’re both back in training mode, we wish there were a faster way to undo the bad choices we made with Netflix marathons and dessert every night. If only those silver bullets actually worked …
Most of us know how to eat healthy, but actually putting that into action can be overwhelming. We start our new healthy eating plans with great ambition (“I’m going to give up all junk food, starting right this second!”) but extreme and immediate overhauls are usually too ambitious and often fizzle out before the end of the week. That’s why crash diets fail, after all — the lifestyle changes are simply not sustainable for the long term. (Hence the Anti-Diet!)
Overwhelmed with trying to change ALL THE THINGS at once, I proposed a different approach to Heidi: What if we changed one or two small things instead? That certainly felt more manageable.

Heidi agreed, and for one month, we committed to drinking one smoothie and eating one salad every day. For the rest of the day, we would eat what we wanted. To keep each other accountable, we’d check in now and then with photos of our good eats.

The idea came from my friend Matt at No Meat Athlete, who often advocates “forming habits” instead of “making changes.” By replacing one meal or snack with a smoothie and another with a salad, Matt argues everything else falls into place. After all, when your belly is full of fruits and vegetables, the drive-through window just doesn’t seem all that tempting anymore. It’s also a good reminder of how easy and good it is to eat right — for most of us, eating whole foods staves off hunger, gives more energy for an active lifestyle and simply feels better.
The smoothie-and-salad habit also allows for life to happen. Instead of trying to follow a rigid diet plan for meals and snacks, I get some flexibility in when I have my smoothie and what I put in it. I can make a salad in less than 5 minutes, or if I’m really in a pinch, I can find a pre-made one almost anywhere these days. It takes just as much time to stop in the produce section of my grocery store as it does to wait in line and bark an order into a drive-thru intercom.

With two healthy meals checked off for the day, I also don’t feel so guilty if (okay, when) I decide to treat myself to one of those delicious-looking cupcakes in the bakery case. Choosing a smoothie for breakfast and a salad for lunch today certainly won’t cancel out my dessert tonight, I know, but it’s certainly better than the choices I made yesterday. That’s far more realistic than an all-or-nothing approach to healthy eating.
I’m having a smoothie and a salad every day this month. Who’s with me? —Susan