How to live your healthiest life 80% of the time and indulge 20% of the time
The 80/20 diet is probably one of my favorite lifestyle hacks….
Find Balance
Making a change or continuing your health journey should not be something you are dreading. You’ve got to find a way, YOUR WAY to take ownership of your own health that works for you. I can’t tell you how happy I feel when I eat a solid, healthy meal because I know I am making a conscious effort in taking care of myself.
So with everything else in life, the 80/20 can apply to the health and dietary choices you make. Meaning that if you are going to work on optimizing your health or encourage yourself to live healthier, you still need have a balance of eating healthy and enjoying what you love or you’re going to burn yourself out before even making any changes.
What the 80/20 rule means is that you eat well, you stay healthy (whatever staying healthy means for you) 80% of the time. The other 20% of time you can splurge, take a day off of eating healthy or exercising. When you try and go 100% into something, especially something new, it can be really tough to stick to the changes and feel happy about it.
Sustainability
Once this balance starts to become a natural way of living, it'll be easier to sustain longer since you’re able to work on improving your wellness AND enjoy the yummy, (or as I call them) naughty things in life.
If you’re like me, you enjoy the naughty things because as a millennial - that’s what I grew up on. Think fruit snacks, kettle chips, ice cream and a personal favorite for me, gummy candies. When I think of these things now vs. when I was younger, I think of what they're made of; seed oils, corn syrup, and no nutritional value but that doesn’t mean I want to cut them out of my life forever. I do know that I no longer want them a part of my everyday or even day to day - only on the occasion because of the way they make me feel inside and out.
Cravings
A big hurdle in keeping this type of balance sustainable is the cravings for me. I started to notice after eating breakfast foods that weren't protein-focused or nutrient dense, it drove more intense cravings for me more frequently throughout the day. So I've discovered that a lot of my cravings come from the foods that I eat. Peak this research section for the "gut flora-centric theory" in reference to what I am talking about and to understand there are theories behind that statement.
"Hunger sensation comes from gut flora" - (Chenggang, 6.2019)
So now you’re wondering what implementing the 80/20 mindset could look like, I’ll provide some examples below and how I like to live by it.
80 / 20 examples in my life:
My preference is to eat home cooked meals during the weekdays (Sun night, Mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs) while the weekends are for trying new restaurants or getting my favorite sandwich for a hike. This is how I balance the 80 / 20 week over week with my meals. Is it perfectly 80 / 20? No but I plan it in a way where I know the majority of the time will be what I consider to be healthy and the other 20(ish) percent is for what I consider to be my "occasional" meals or snacks.
80/20 can be looked at on a micro level too where I look specifically at my day, I ALWAYS try to make breakfast or my first meal of the day to be made at home because it’s the first thing breaking my fast. Especially if I know that the other 80 percent of my day will be eating out and possibly drinking. If I can manage this then I make an insanely nutritious breakfast with loads of greens (plants), healthy fats and some healthy carbs.
80/20 fitness and exercise is another example that I focus on week over week. My typical schedule includes gym, walking and some workout classes. Some days I wake up sore, tired and just unmotivated to workout so I choose to take those days off. My goal week over week is to get a mix of gym exercises, workout classes and walking and make sure that happens a majority of the days (80%). The other days I rest.
I am no expert or doctor, but I am a practitioner and am sharing findings that work for me! I hope this helps inspire you to start or continue on your wellness journey.
Comment and let me know what your 80/20 ideas are and what you want to see next from the blog...
References
Chenggang Zhang, Wenjing Gong, Zhihui Li, Dawen Gao, Yan Gao, Research progress of gut flora in improving human wellness, Food Science and Human Wellness, Volume 8, Issue 2, 2019, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213453019300278?via%3Dihub.
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