Since January 1st 2016 I haven't eaten any ketchup.
What a great achievement! Well not really. I've had other condiments on some occasions such as brown sauce and mayonnaise.
So what's the point?
Well, I wanted to see if I could make conscious decisions and replace habitual eating with conscious eating.
To put it into perspective, I was not exactly a ketchup addict. But, it did find its way onto eggs occasionally in the morning when they seemed a bit dry and onto some dinner plates too. It was becoming unconscious and I wanted to see what I could do about it.
What about you?
Many people will eat or drink certain things at certain times just because "that's what I've always done."
But what if these things are benefiting them? In fact, what if these small things are regularly steering them away from their goals.
What do you do unconsciously? Biscuits with your daily cup of tea? Sugars in your tea? Pudding after dinner? Alcohol after work?
What should you do next?
Try to remove these habitual things that are taking you further from your goals for 3 weeks or more. Know that you're not going to go without them forever.
Then, as you choose to, gradually re-introduce some of the things on a less frequent occasion.
Building these conscious habits with your eating can be a great way to increase your awareness of the foods you consume and in doing so, strike up a much more beneficial balance between "good" and "bad".
If you're not sure where to start then perhaps write a food diary and look through it after a week to find recurring detractors that keep reappearing such as foods that are high in sugar.
