GET THE HEALTHY EATING HABIT

Day 4: Create a healthy storecupboard

What is the greatest threat to healthy eating?

The local junk-food outlet? The Friday-night after-work drink and meal out?

No � the biggest threat to your success, is quite simply the chocolate, cake, sweets, potato chips and other unhealthy foods that are lurking, right now, in your storecupboard.

Yes, by keeping a stock of unhealthy foods in your home, you�re making it all too easy for yourself to eat badly � when you could be eating well.

Imagine � you come home from work. Better � you come home for the gym. Either way, you�re tired and you�re hungry. You want food that�s quick and satisfying.

What do you do? If your shelves are packed with junk food � cookies, biscuits, bought cakes, chocolate bars, deep-fried salted nuts � and the inside of your fridge or freezer has enough pizza, ice cream, fries, cream and desserts to make a junk food addict dribble�

�you�re in trouble. Because when you�re tired, hungry and in a hurry, you reach for the food that�s closest.

From now on, make sure that your home is stocked with healthy foods. That doesn�t mean you must never allow your favorite goodies through the door again. That wouldn�t be realistic. Too much denial is likely to drive you to desperate binges, which are no good at all.

But I am suggesting you ration your unhealthy foods. Cut back to one or two unhealthy items a day at most. Use your food diary to track what you eat.

Go through your cupboards now, and take out the unhealthy foods. Pass them on, throw them out, even eat some of them � but resolve that you won�t buy those items again.

For every unhealthy item you put in the shopping cart, put in five � yes, five � healthy items. For every tub of ice cream, add a bag of apples, a pound of carrots, some unsalted nuts, a wholemeal loaf, a jar of organic peanut butter.

Gradually alter the balance, so that when you turn to your storecupboard or fridge to grab a quick meal, plan that night�s supper, or keep yourself going with a snack, you find a whole range of tempting and healthy foods, right there where you can eat them straight away.

This may sound hard, especially if you eat a lot of unhealthy foods, so take it gradually. Your palate and your stomach need to learn new sensations. After a while, as you eat more fresh, unprocessed foods, you�ll find that junk food tastes too sweet, or too salt, too bland, or too much of additives. In fact often, it doesn�t taste of anything much at all.

Make your healthy storecupboard your friend and ally in your search for a better diet. It makes a lot of sense.

Day 4 of Get the Healthy Eating Habit, ecourse.