Having a Healthy Nutritional Lifestyle Increases Happiness

Personal nutrition must be a lifestyle change.

I wrote a blog post about how the best exercise to get into shape is the one that you find motivating and enjoyable.  The same applies for nutrition habits as well. For personal nutrition to be successful the goal must be more than simply to lose weight; it must be a personal nutrition lifestyle change. What does this mean? It means I am trying to dig deep, experiment with different choices, and find a way to DESIRE moderate portions of healthy foods. I understand this sounds ridiculous. People who eat healthy don’t do it because they actually like healthy food; they just like the results of healthy food; right? Why would anyone desire to eat less? Why would anyone desire healthy foods? This might sound idealistic, but I really want to have this lifestyle transformation. I’m going to share what I have learned so far in my process of changing.

My journey towards desiring moderate portions of healthy foods.

I’m losing weight. In order to do this my goal is to consume 1400 to 1800 calories each day. 1800 calories is a huge drop for me and has not been an easy task. I realize that after I reach my target weight, I will be able to increase my calories; however, I am striving for a lifestyle change in my exercise and nutrition habits. As a result I am attempting to find healthy recipes, foods, desserts, etc. that I enjoy and crave. In addition, I am trying to create habits and passions around food that are in line with good nutrition. Here are a few examples:

In search for nutritional food that is filling, I have found that I love cooking. I love trying new recipes, combining recipes, and even trying to create recipes from restaurants that I eat at. Just recently I had great experiences attempting to recreate Chicken Marsala from Olive Garden and Tomato Basil Soup from Zupas. I have a discovered that I have a passion for playing around in the kitchen attempting to fit new ingredients together.

Second, I have found that I enjoy swanky food. This is how my wife describes most of my cooking. Basically, I enjoy creating and consuming food that is not simple, not meant to be eaten quickly, and not meant to be enjoyed in large portions. If you can’t yet imagine swanky food, picture a small dish served in an expensive restaurant on a large plate, picture this food having a ton of flavor, and for my purposes picture it being both filling and nutritional.

Swanky Food

The other thing I have found is that I prefer spacing out my meals. I have been splitting my meals and enjoying them more often. I have been eating half of my lunch around 11 in the morning and finishing it a few hours later around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I have also been snacking on delicious treats throughout the day such as V8 V-Fusion drinks, Fiber One bars, and giant packages of small bell peppers or snap peas. I enjoy snacking. If I eat too large of a meal, I’ll get bored with it and I actually find it more enjoyable the second time around then if I force it the first time. I am still able to limit my calories under 1800 calories, I just do so 200-300 calories at a time throughout the day.

What healthy nutrition habits do you find motivating and enjoyable?

Obviously we are not the same. What makes me tick won’t make you tick. However, I hope I have at least given you some examples on how you can experiment with different healthy habits until you find some you truly enjoy. One that creates a healthy lifestyle for you that will last a lifetime. And in the meantime, I’ll be right alongside you working towards the same lifestyle transformation goal.

Why are hobbies so important?

I have a wide variety of passions and interests.  Yet, discovering hobbies that take place in the home has been a real struggle.  The discussion around hobbies comes up regularly in our home… mainly that I need one.

The struggle is that my favorite hobbies involve things outside of my home environment.  I absolutely love playing sports, most recently basketball and soccer, but really I enjoy most any sport with a ball.  I also really enjoy the outdoors.  I love camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, and participating in most water sports.

When my daughter was born our late night excursions decreased and the time our family spends in our home has increased.  I still make time for my outdoor hobbies and adventures; however, the time spent on these hobbies has decreased.  When I’m not at school, I love spending time with my family during the day and then most nights we try to have our daughter in bed by 8 PM, leaving plenty of available time.

I do have some indoor hobbies such as board games, card games, cooking and to a lesser extent reading, painting, and drawing; however, the group activities require mutual interest and my passion for these individual activities is not as powerful as my love for sports and the outdoors.  It is often too easy to resort to external sources of entertainment such as watching movies, television shows, or sports.

So why are hobbies so important?  Hobbies are proven to increase an individual’s happiness.  Here are a few reasons they are so powerful at doing so:

• Hobbies bring a sense of freedom.  People are in control of their hobbies, they do not need to rely on friends or other forms of entertainment, and they are not assigned to participate in hobbies; instead they choose to do so.  This choice brings extra satisfaction and helps people to unwind from their required duties.
• Hobbies are your time.  Because of this, people make sure to create time for their hobby and then keep those personal appointments.  Time is a scarce resource and the world is constantly trying to take away that time.  Time remains yours while participating in a hobby.
• Developing hobbies makes people feel proud and satisfied.  This increases self-esteem and confidence.
• Achieving goals associated with hobbies brings personal fulfillment and accomplishment.
• Hobbies expand a person’s experiences and expertise which increasing creativity, knowledge, and performance.  This creativity, knowledge, and performance can then be applied to other aspects of people’s lives.  Multiple hobbies are actually better than just one because you can apply skills from one hobby to the other.

Hobbies are basically internal sources of entertainment and they provide greater happiness than external sources of entertainment.  Knowing this, I have attempted to make adjustments to my entertainment decisions at home.  Your adjustments will be different; however, mine include items from my Don’t Do List (I’ll discuss this in a later blog post):

• No computer games (hearts, spades, free cell) or ESPN online (These use to be two of my default entertainment sources even though I was well aware they weren’t that satisfying.)
• Only watch TV with my wife and daughter (We still watch our favorite shows, but this prevents me from mindlessly searching for a show to watch when my wife is reading a book or writing.)
• No NBA or college basketball games (Except BYU games.)

Don’t get me wrong, I can get some entertainment online, watching television, and watching basketball games.  Although, as I have removed these external sources of entertainment and forced myself to engage in more creative or interesting activities, I have increased time on my hobbies, found more hobbies, and increased the overall enjoyment in my life.

How can you make hobbies more of a priority in your life?