How to Organize Your Way to Healthy Eating

Orga­ni­za­tion is an art — and for some peo­ple, it’s a hob­by and a pas­sion. There are stores, blogs, and even TV shows ded­i­cat­ed to organizing.

Stay­ing orga­nized can reduce stress and anx­i­ety, boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and even improve your men­tal health. But did you know that it can also lead to health­i­er eating?

Here are 4 ways to use orga­ni­za­tion to make healthy diet decisions:

1. Take Up Meal Prepping

A home­made meal (and we’re not talk­ing about a frozen piz­za or instant mac and cheese), is often much health­i­er than a meal from a restau­rant. Restau­rants tend to serve over­sized por­tions of foods that are high­er in calo­ries, fat, and sodi­um, com­pared to foods that you make your­self. But after a long day of work or when you only have a short lunch break, cook­ing might be the last thing on your mind. 

Meal prep­ping is a tool that can help you stay on track with healthy eat­ing by plan­ning what you’re going to eat ahead of time. This makes it a lot eas­i­er to choose a healthy, home-cooked meal over take-out and fast food. It’s also known to help you save mon­ey and reduce food waste.

2. Make Health­i­er Foods More Accessible

If you have to dig into the back of your pantry to reach your health­i­er snacks but there’s a box of cook­ies and a bag of chips look­ing you right in the face as soon as you open the door, which one are you going to choose?

It’s okay to treat your­self to a piece of choco­late or a bowl of cheese puffs every now and then (as long as you don’t have a med­ical con­di­tion where you have to avoid cer­tain foods). How­ev­er, hav­ing those foods eas­i­ly avail­able at all times can make eat­ing junk food quick­ly become a habit rather than a spe­cial occasion. 

Make sure to keep the health­i­er foods that you should be eat­ing on a more reg­u­lar basis eas­i­er to access and at eye-lev­el. If you want to keep the cook­ies and ice cream around, put them in places like high-up cab­i­nets that you can only reach by stand­ing on a stool or way at the bot­tom of your freez­er. The more work it takes to get to them, the less like­ly you may be to choose them in favor of health­i­er foods. 

If you’re look­ing for help mak­ing health­i­er eat­ing choic­es, sched­ule an appoint­ment with a South Bend Clin­ic fam­i­ly med­i­cine or inter­nal med­i­cine provider.

3. Keep Your Kitchen Neat and Tidy

Stress eat­ing is a real thing — and some­times, it’s sim­ply the stress of hav­ing a messy kitchen and way too much in your refrigerator. 

A messy kitchen doesn’t just con­tribute to stress. Not hav­ing clean cook­ware or emp­ty counter space can make cook­ing dif­fi­cult, which could lead you to choose the eas­i­er option of grab­bing some­thing less healthy that doesn’t require much prep. 

Hav­ing too much in your fridge can give you so many options that choos­ing one becomes over­whelm­ing. You might be tempt­ed to just grab the first thing you see, even if it’s less healthy, or skip the deci­sion-mak­ing alto­geth­er and order a piz­za. While it’s impor­tant to have a well-stocked fridge, make sure it’s packed with the right foods and not stuffed to the point where you can’t find any­thing or where it’s stress­ful to make decisions. 

You may also want to invest in bins or cab­i­net orga­niz­ers so that healthy snacks, ingre­di­ents, or cook­ware are always at the ready. 

4. Orga­nize Your Bed­room, Too

Get­ting a good night’s sleep is asso­ci­at­ed with choos­ing health­i­er foods, where­as not get­ting enough sleep can make you more like­ly to pick foods that are high­er in calo­ries and fat. 

Hav­ing a well-orga­nized room and a healthy sleep envi­ron­ment can make get­ting that good sleep a whole lot eas­i­er. In fact, research has shown that peo­ple who clear clut­ter from their rooms and make their beds every morn­ing may sleep bet­ter at night.

In addi­tion to orga­niz­ing your room, make sure to take oth­er steps to estab­lish a good sleep envi­ron­ment, like invest­ing in com­fort­able pil­lows and keep­ing your room cool at night.

Orga­niz­ing is just one of many ways to improve your eat­ing habits. Focus­ing on your men­tal health, sleep, and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty are also impor­tant. And if you’re look­ing for more tips and tools for healthy eat­ing, you can always reach out to your pri­ma­ry care provider.