The whole world advocates not eating junk food and we agree with it. It is a poison that is slowly eating away at our health. Today our article is about how to stop eating junk food and adopt a healthy lifestyle instead.
What is Junk Food Meaning?
Junk food is defined as food that has low nutritional value and is rich in oil, fats, and salt. Here you need to know that junk food, fast food, and processed food are all different terms.
Processed food is food that is altered during the packaging. Fast food is a common oily food available in restaurants and junk food is a food that is low in healthy food contents like fiber and minerals etc. One thing that is common in all is that all three are strictly not good for health.
How to Stop Eating Junk Food?
For all those who eat unhealthy food, it is like an addiction, and trust us we are fully aware of how difficult it is to stop eating unhealthy food once and for all. As soon as you try to stop it, the cravings can make you insanely motivated again.
So here are a few steps that will help you through the journey of healthy eating.
Acceptance is a key
The real struggle for a junk food junkie is to accept the fact that this needs to stop. Although most of us already know the danger, oily food possess, we still like to live in a state of denial. That ultimate pleasure makes you forget about the bigger picture and keeps your brain hooked to temporary pleasures. So the change starts, when you make yourself realize that whatever you are eating is not good in the long term.
The First Step is Always Hard
Junk food is like a drug. Once you start going down the lane, there is no coming back. That is why your brain keeps you hooked with the idea of ” a little more won’t hurt”. In actuality, every little bite counts.
In the start, it is not easy to stop oily food and switch to a healthy diet at once. So you have to make baby steps. You can simply let go of “one” snack per time. Junkies are usually irregular eaters who sometimes eat solely for time pass. Just letting go of one junk food snack at a time will start making a big difference.
Dodge Your Mind
Mind is a tricky thing to handle. The journey to a healthy lifestyle is all about the perception of our brain. So you have to train your mind to do certain things. Here is how this works. For example, you want to eat potato chips. You can eat air fry potato chips. They look like chips but are made without oil. So this way you can soothe yourself while switching to a healthy diet.
Make a Timetable
Sticking to a routine is very helpful in adopting a healthy lifestyle. When people consume snacks, they get stick to an unhealthy food routine. The timetable helps you to avoid unnecessary food episodes. In the beginning, it will be difficult for a day or two but when you will finally achieve it, your brain will start accepting that your body will get food on time only.
How to Kill the Cravings
The reason, unhealthy food is hard to leave is all those untimely cravings. Some people crave sweets and others for oily or salty things. The reason for those cravings is that you keep supplying your body with fake calories and your body slowly gets used to it. When you stop it, the natural alarm system in your body tells you that you are going “out of petrol”.
Once you don’t feed your body what it craves, the brain starts realizing that it was not as “important” as it seems. So your cravings start going down. The whole craving game is three days. If you can stop your hand for three days, your brain will stop giving false signals that you need that unhealthy food anymore.
Switch One Unhealthy Snack With a Healthy Diet
Now when you have decided and are on road to saying goodbye to unhealthy snacks, with a few tricks you can train your brain to only go for healthy food. In the start, you switched your one junk food snack per day. Now is a time to switch to one healthy diet instead. For example, instead of a carbonated drink, drink one glass of fresh juice.
Be Consistent
It’s important to be consistent throughout this journey. To be consistent, it is strictly advised not to go for “cheat meals”. There is no concept of a cheat meal when you are trying to avoid unhealthy food. Instead, you will only feed yourself more oily food in the name of cheat meals when your body doesn’t need it at all.
Is There Any Healthy Junk Food?
There is no such thing as healthy junk food. Junk food is extremely bad for health and one should avoid it as much as possible. Those who are in favor of it explain that our body needs oil and salt. Well, our body needs salt and oil but in limited amounts and through healthy food. Natural salt in food is not the same as white salt. Similarly, our body needs good fats.
Disadvantages of Junk Food
As tasty as it sounds, junk food is very unhealthy. The harmful effects of junk food include
- It causes obesity which can lead to heart disease and blood pressure.
- Junk food causes irregularities in blood sugar levels causing diabetes in the body.
- It triggers our stress hormones and causes depression in people who consume more junk food.
- Due to increased weight, a person suffers joint pain and bone pain.
- Develops Irregular eating habits.
- Junk food slows down the metabolism rate which causes problems in the digestive system.
- It affects the memory function of the brain and causes lethargy and fatigue.
- Junk food cause fatty liver and in some cases promotes the growth of cancerous cells in the body.
In the end, all we have to say is health is wealth. So you should stop eating junk food and consider switching to a healthy lifestyle.