Second in our three part spring cleaning series: spring cleaning for healthy eating! (First up was spring cleaning your fitness gear, and last will be one more extra-important fit spring cleaning tip that you might never have done before.)
Declutter Your Food Storage
Toss, donate, or give away anything that you’re not going to eat or that you don’t want to eat. Personally, I’m prone to buying new “healthy” snacks that either look good to me at the time in the store or that I think my clients will ask me about (so I want to be able to give a real opinion about taste and quality)…and then letting them live, half-eaten and rent-free, in my pantry even after I find out that I don’t really like them.
I used to use one of my crisper drawers as a shelter for the limp but well-intentioned. I’d buy veggies that required just one extra prep step (leeks that needed sand removed, cauliflower heads that I wanted to rice), and often that single extra step would be more than my schedule would allow, so the veggies would linger in hospice while I kept swearing I would stay up an extra 10 minutes one night to prep or cook them.
Whatever your food clutter is, let it go! Just because it’s healthy doesn’t mean that you’ll decide to eat it one day if you get hungry enough…I’m sure you’ve bought other food while those cluttery items languished uneaten. This step is key because it’s totally demotivating to see reminders of past decisions that didn’t serve you, food you just plain don’t like, and an overwhelming number of options every time you go to snack or cook. The more options we have, the more stress we have when we try to make a decision, so get rid of options that no longer suit you. (Most grocery stores have food bank bins at their entrances to accept donations – the Kroger closest to the Tiny Fitness studio does!)
Depressurize Your Food
Easier said than done, but stop striving to eat “perfectly” (unless you’re on a medical diet) and move toward a way of eating that is both nutritionally rich and satisfying for your personal needs. There’s no one way to “eat healthy”, so pause and take the pressure off!
Find or make a simple statement that describes how you want to feed yourself (I nourish myself, food is my energy, etc.) and let go of all of the other ideas that have crept into your ideas about food. And if you need help figuring out how to navigate food labels or eat for your goals, a qualified dietitian or fitness professional can probably help.
Beautify Your Food Storage
Or at least put the food that you want to be eating in front! Set yourself up to succeed and make it easy to reach for the things that will help you reach your goals.
You don’t have to become an “organized person” to keep your pantry and fridge set up in a way that works for you – you might even start by just designating one spot in each for the food that you want to eat, and just keep that area easy to navigate. It will be even easier to keep up now that you decluttered back in step 1!
It turns out that I actually have a lot to say about organizing your food to set yourself up to succeed with healthy eating, but that snuck up on me so I’m saving it for a future post…in the meantime, I will just address the most common objection which is that your kids/husband/guests are messy/like M&Ms/won’t keep up the system. So, just keep up your small space that’s yours! There’s also nothing wrong with organizing food storage by consumer – in other words, instead of having a “snack” shelf, have a “kids” shelf or bin and a “mom” shelf or bin, and let the bins or shelves that aren’t yours take whatever form they need to!
What will you declutter from your pantry or fridge? Personally, I’m getting rid of some frozen smoothies I made that went off (even though the ingredients were expensive, blah blah), some pickles and sauces that I bought at Trader Joe’s even though I knew I didn’t really like them because I didn’t want to go to another grocery store that day, and half of my reusable bags because they’ve overflowed their allotted space in the bottom of the pantry (about 25 bags…).
I’m also restocking my storm water and food because I used some of it last year during Harvey – make sure you’re ready, too!
