Six Tips for Transitioning to a New Way of Eating
As a girl that loves a good challenge, I decided to kick off 2021 doing a vegan eating challenge (known as Veganuary) in which you eat a plant-based diet for the month of January. It felt good to get back into eating more whole foods after binging on Christmas treats for the last weeks of 2020, and I figured making the leap from mostly vegetarian to vegan for a month would be a change that wasn’t so big that I’d fail miserably. While there were definitely some hurdles (no eating eggs, no baking with eggs, I really love eggs), 31 days of plant-based eating felt good and is something I’ve tried to stick to even into February and March.
Now that springtime is here, we feel a sense of rejuvenation, or new possibilities on the horizon. If shifting to a new way of eating is something you’re looking to revamp during this change of season, I’ve come up with a list of tips to help guide you. Maybe you want to try cutting something out - gluten, caffeine, alcohol. Or perhaps you want to look at adding something into your routine - a meatless Monday, more whole foods over processed foods, a bigger variety of vegetables. Whatever change you’re looking to make, here are 6 things that will help make your transition more manageable and hopefully leave you feeling successful!
Six Tips for Transitioning to a New Way of Eating
1. Ask yourself ‘why?’
This first step is important in laying the foundation for whatever new way of eating you are hoping to transition to. We rarely make a shift in our dietary routine ‘just because’, so ask yourself why you’re making this change. What are you looking to achieve? How do you want to feel? Why is this important to you?
2. Identify support (or sabotage)
A big part of achieving success when transitioning to a new way of eating is having the right support. Telling the people you eat with most often (family, friends, roommates, colleagues) that you’re trying something new and asking for their help plays such a significant role in your ability to make change. If someone else does your grocery shopping, offer to write a list of items you’ll need, or be the designated shopper for a few weeks. Oppositely, who in your life might try to undermine this decision? Do you have a specific friend that will convince you to ‘just order the fries’ when you’re trying to eat a more whole food diet?
3. Learn how
This may seem quite obvious, but hear me out. Once you’ve decided what kind of change you’re making, you need to learn the ‘how-tos’. For example, as I transitioned to a plant-based diet for the month of January, I had to make reading food labels a new part of my routine when shopping/cooking, I had to ask if certain foods contained things like eggs or dairy, I had to research what common ingredients are considered animal products that I’d been previously consuming, and I had to look for some new recipes to replace staples like eggs, muffins, etc.
4. Experiment
This is the fun part! Once you’ve started learning ‘how to’ eat the way you want to, you get to try new foods and recipes. There are endless ideas available at our fingertips thanks to social media, so get adventurous. Making a meal plan ahead of time also helps ensure you have time to get any new ingredients that aren’t normally staples in your pantry.
5. Evaluate/adjust
Once you’ve had some time to experiment, you’ll want to assess how things are going for you. What’s going well? What isn’t working? Where can I improve or make changes? Maybe you decided to go vegan for a month and it’s just become too overwhelming, so you scale back and commit to vegan dinners. Only you know your schedule, your routines and what works best for you. Ask yourself questions and then as Ross says, PIVOT!
6. Appreciate your efforts
This last step may seem silly, but acknowledging our efforts in making change is so important. We are so quick to judge ourselves and focus on what we didn’t do well, where we failed or what we did wrong. Appreciating our efforts makes us feel motivated and inspired to keep making progress. Celebrate what you’ve done, however big or small!
Whatever changes you’re looking to make, I hope these six tips will help you on your way. Good luck, and I’m here to help if you need me!