Obviously eating junk food doesn’t pose nearly the same risks as taking drugs. However, the argument is essentially the same: in one case the pleasure from consumption overrides the consequences, in another the consequences are unacceptable. Unfortunately, where most people draw this line about what is acceptable unhealthy consumption is based on their friends and not facts.

The benefits of healthy eating habits outweigh the occasional joy of eating junk food. Here are just a few things to consider before putting food into your mouth:

Energy levels. Know any productive heroin addicts? Probably not. Yet people fail to recognize the impact diet has on energy levels. When I made the switch to a healthy vegetarian diet, it only took a few days before I felt my energy surge upwards.

Body image. Looking good is the core idea ruling most diet books today. While I’d say that having a great figure is only a small benefit compared to high energy levels and avoiding painful degenerative diseases, it’s still a plus.

The truth is that most people don’t eat a healthier diet because they don’t know how to permanently redesign their eating habits. Smoking used to be popular a few decades ago until public awareness about the health risk reached a critical threshold. Once you understand the need to eat a healthy diet, the only obstacle is how to do it.

How To Redesign Your Diet

Permanently changing your eating patterns can be broken down into three steps. The steps aren’t terribly complicated or magical. But if you do the research and get the right motivation to eat healthy, then following through these three steps isn’t too difficult.

Step One: Break down your old eating habits and rebuild new ones.

Eating is a habit. Out of the millions of possible meals I could eat today, I’ll probably stick to the same few dozen I’ve ate in the last month. The reason its easy to eat junk food day after day is that the patterns for eating junk food have been layered into a habit.

The way to rebuild a new habit is to go on a thirty day trial. Commit to changing what you eat for thirty days, no exceptions. This will focus your discipline into the narrow range of a month where most of the effort in changing your diet is required. This commitment will overwrite bad eating habits with good ones.

Step Two: Get more positive feedback than negative feedback.

Conditioning a habit is useful, but it isn’t enough. If you enjoy eating your new foods less than your old foods, you’ll slowly drift back. Willpower does not last forever, so a different strategy is needed if you want to change your diet permanently.

Tipping the scales of feedback means that your current diet gives more positive reinforcement than your old diet did. If you can successfully tip the scales, then continuing good eating habits will be easier than going back to junk food. Here are a few ways you can shift the balance in your favor:

Find great recipes. Right now you are on an incredibly restrictive diet. Out of the millions of possible delicious meals you could be eating, you’re sticking with the same 20-30 on a regular basis. By finding new recipes that are also healthy you can still eat tasty foods.

Change your language. Change the language you use to describe junk food. Link up the pictures of feeling sick and unhealthy towards junk food and it will lose its appeal. Similarly, find foods you enjoy within your diet that you can link positive images towards.

Notice your energy levels. When you start going on a new diet trial, pay attention to your energy after the first few weeks. The initial adjustment to a new diet can be a bit bumpy, but when you feel the difference in energy levels, it will be hard to switch back.

Step Three: Monitor and make gradual improvements.

The final step is to take the cycle of conditioning and feedback and apply it gradually. Trying to redesign your entire diet overnight is difficult to do. But if you slowly replace foods, less willpower is required and you can still enjoy the long-term benefits of health and vitality.

via The Massive Benefits of a Healthy Diet and How to Make Yours Stick | PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement.

2- Develop courage: Sounds like a weird advice, right? Actually it was discovered that procrastination is sometimes your mind’s method to help you escape from the tasks you fear to do or from the fear of failure. Sounds like organic chemistry assignments so, so much. And also having to review my promo papers and when I have to redo math topics that I have difficulty understanding in

3- Don’t wait for the right mood: While I wish you happiness everyday still this is not how life works. One day you might find yourself sad, the second day you might find yourself irritated while the third day you might find yourself not in the mood. Waiting for the right mood can kill productivity. Especially when faced with a problem with people, emotionally.

4- Don’t wait for the right time: Sometimes waiting for the right time becomes the excuse we use to escape from responsibilities and the tasks that we don’t like. Just like waiting for the right mood will slow down your productivity waiting for the right time will never help you get your tasks done. Start right now!!! Like waiting for morning to come thinking that’s my “productive time of the day”, just to avert doing work at night.

5- Know exactly what you should do: I became the most productive when I started developing lists for the tasks I must do. A friend of mine once told me that the main reason for her procrastination was not knowing exactly where to start from.I find that starting each day with a glance at my to-do list helps me to focus – and remember – important things that I need to accomplish. As I complete the tasks, I cross them off the list. Nothing better than getting close to the end with lots of crossed out lines and a feeling of accomplishment.

6- Are you motivated enough?: Productivity and motivation are 2 sides of the same coin. If you aren’t motivated enough you won’t feel like working and productivity would have no meaning. Understand the reasons behind your lack of motivation and treat them in order to become truly productive.

7- Promise yourself a good reward: People who are not productive don’t enjoy their time because of feeling guilty. If you promised yourself some good free time after completing your tasks you will be able to both enjoy your free time and to become productive. In short, work time must only be dedicated for work and free time must only be dedicated to having fun instead of worrying about your productivity. I’M GOING TO MEET LOWE FOR DINNER AND WATCH CHRISTMAS LIGHTINGS TONIGHT! Productivity boost!

8- Divide your big task into easy, small parts: Henry Ford once said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”. This will help you overcome any procrastination you might have, while building momentum to do more.

9-Acknowledge distractions: Sounds strange right? That doesn’t mean you adhere to them. Instead, you should address them. Don’t pretend something isn’t distracting you. Simple things, like having the TV on in the background or a leaky facet, can distract you just enough to curb your productivity. Fix these problems and you’ll be amazed at what eliminating minor distractions can do for your productivity.

Exercise Lowers Your Stress Levels

It’s hard to work when you’re feeling anxious, upset or angry. Yes, you might be able to pour some of that negative energy into your work (“I’m going to get this $%”& report done!”) – but overall, you’re going to find that it’s hard to concentrate.

Being stressed out isn’t good for you or for the people around you. How often have you snapped at a colleague or family member, just because you were in a bad mood? How often have you had to spend time patching up that relationship?

When you’re stressed, you might feel that the last thing you want to do is summon up the motivation to get some exercise. Get moving anyway. Once you’ve been jogging or cycling for a few minutes, you’ll find the stress melting away – almost miraculously.Exercising has a proven effect on our mental state, so much so that doctors now “prescribe” exercise for milder cases of depression.

This is something I could use, at times when I hang up the phone, feeling detached from what I was previously doing.

Exercise Can Help You Think

I’ll bet that, at some point in your life, you’ve had the experience of a great idea coming to you when you’re not at your desk. Perhaps you were in the shower, out walking, chilling out with friends, or doing something else totally unrelated to your work.

When you’re busy, it’s tempting to keep on trying to do your work. That makes it hard tothink about it in a creative way, or with new perspective. Getting away from your desk and heading to the gym (or pool or running track) gives you the “head space” which you need in order to come up with new ideas.

You might even want to keep a notebook or voice recorder to hand, so that you can jot your ideas down.

GP! GP was the first thing that came to my mind when I read this. Whenever I have to generate ideas to fill an essay, I sit at my desk trying to regurgitate everything relevant, yet nothing seem to come to mind. I can vouch for this exercise benefit!

Binge Eating Trigger #1: You Wait Too Long to Eat
When your blood sugar dips too low, the lack of fuel to your brain can make you unfocused and cranky—and more likely to toss back Twizzlers after a snarky comment from a co-worker.
The fix: Make time for breakfast every morning and eat something every two or three hours after that. Include "good" carbs (whole grains and fruit) to give you energy and protein to slow digestion and prevent those emotional highs and lows.

Binge Eating Trigger #2: You’re Too Strict with Your Diet
Put can’t-live-without foods on a ”forbidden” list and you’re bound to feel deprived. You may find yourself picking a fight over something petty and then consoling yourself with a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream later.
The fix: Build self-contained splurges into your eating plan. Buy a single homemade cookie instead of a box, or split a small order of fries with a friend.

Binge Eating Trigger #3: You Expect Perfection
If you beat yourself up every time you nab a free sample at the supermarket or nibble off your child’s plate, you may feel discouraged or even depressed—emotions that cry out for comfort food.
The fix: Get some perspective: A bite of cheesecake or a handful of Tater Tots won’t derail your success. Think of every slip as a mini detour and get back on track right away.

Although negative emotions can trigger emotional eating, you can take steps to control cravings and renew your effort at weight loss. To help stop emotional eating, try these tips:

• Have a hunger reality check. Is your hunger physical or emotional? If you ate just a few hours ago and don’t have a rumbling stomach, you’re probably not really hungry. Give the craving a little time to pass.
• Keep a food diary. Write down what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, how you’re feeling when you eat and how hungry you are. Over time, you may see patterns emerge that reveal the connection between mood and food.
• Fight boredom. Instead of snacking when you’re not truly hungry, distract yourself. Take a walk, watch a movie, play with your cat, listen to music, read, surf the Internet or call a friend.
• Take away temptation. Don’t keep supplies of comfort foods in your home if they’re hard for you to resist. And if you feel angry or blue, postpone your trip to the grocery store until you’re sure that you have your emotions in check.
• Don’t deprive yourself. When you’re trying to achieve a weight-loss goal, you may limit your calories too much, eat the same foods frequently and banish the treats you enjoy. This may just serve to increase your food cravings, especially in response to emotions. Let yourself enjoy an occasional treat and get plenty of variety to help curb cravings.
• Snack healthy. If you feel the urge to eat between meals, choose a low-fat, low-calorie snack, such as fresh fruit, vegetables with fat-free dip, or unbuttered popcorn. Or try low-fat, lower calorie versions of your favorite foods to see if they satisfy your craving.
• Get enough sleep. If you’re constantly tired, you might snack to try to give yourself an energy boost. Take a nap or go to bed earlier instead.

If you have an episode of emotional eating, forgive yourself and start fresh the next day. Try to learn from the experience and make a plan for how you can prevent it in the future. Focus on the positive changes you’re making in your eating habits and give yourself credit for making changes that’ll lead to better health.

The main reason we choose a particular food is because we like the way it tastes.

But it is possible to teach yourself to love the taste of healthier foods as an adult. Learning to enjoy "the taste of eating right" takes time and perseverance. It also helps to know easy, healthy cooking techniques.

2. Favorite Foods

Ask most any expert about the secret to weight loss, and you”ll hear that it”s essential to keep favorite foods as part of a healthy diet.

It”s human nature: As soon as you attach denial to a particular food, it becomes an obsession. And it doesn”t take a rocket scientist to know that being obsessed with food is no good for weight loss.

No one wants to give up their favorite foods. We know you need your favorite foods; it”s your job to be responsible in terms of how often and how much you eat them (unless these favorites happen to be low-calorie fruits and vegetables).

3. Eating With Your Eyes

It”s not uncommon to be disconnected to your hunger center, and to instead ""eat with your eyes."" Sometimes, wanting to eat something is all about how yummy it looks.

4. Cost and Convenience

The good news is that you can stretch your food dollars even when you’re crunched for time. Quick-serve restaurants abound; you can always find a nutritious soup, salad, or grilled chicken sandwich that won’t sabotage your diet.

5. Personality Type

Each of us is different, and how we approach change varies with our personality types. Some WLC members prefer the flexibility to move foods around to accommodate hunger and changing schedules. Others want a specific detailed list of foods to eat and avoid. Some people simply need to stay the course exactly; left with too many decisions, they overeat.

Knowing your "diet personality" will offer insight into why you make some of your food choices. Ultimately, you decide which approach works best to help you control the type and quantity of food you consume.

6. Too Many Choices!

My mantra is "never go to buffet restaurants." No matter how hard I try, I end up wanting to sample "just a bite" of virtually everything on the buffet. I end up eating way too many calories, when quite frankly, I would have been just as satisfied with a soup and salad.

Studies suggest that the greater the variety of food offered, the more we tend to eat. Add more choices, and consumption increases by an average of 25%. In contrast, monotonous meals don’t usually lead to overeating.

Maybe it’s just a matter of curiosity. Keep the variety of foods at any particular meal to a minimum, and it may help you resist the temptation to overeat.

7. Social Settings

Typically, we eat more when we eat meals away from home and in the company of others.

Likewise, when you dine with health-conscious friends and family, you are influenced to eat more nutritiously. Do yourself a favor, and, whenever you can, surround yourself with people who value healthy cuisine.