This article was taken from the blog of a site called Kitchen Karate. I really love it and think we can all learn from it. Here is the link to the original: http://www.kitchenkarate.com/blog.html

Advertisers know better than anyone that people aren’t motivated to do things for reasons; they are motivated by feelings – the feeling of pleasure, the feeling of youth, the feeling of ease, the feeling of “it-factor”. Move the needle on feelings and you move the needle on sales.

If you ever ask yourself why you’re not eating better, without fail you will find the answer is usually that you make food choices based on emotion. You want to feel pleasure; you want to escape stress; you want to not have to think about anything and just eat.

So the most powerful question you can ask yourself is, “How do I get myself to WANT to eat right?”     

Kitchen Karate student Paloma Posford cooks up healthy meals for the work week.

At first, you might answer with the standard lines – “I want to feel healthy.” “I want to look good.” “I want to live a long active life and be there for my kids.”

These are all great, compelling, reasons with real world validity – and yet, they don’t stand up to a cupcake.

Why? Because eating a salad does not satisfy the want of looking good with the immediacy that eating a cupcake satisfies the want of stress relief. 

Another way to put this is that wanting to eat right in the abstract is not the same as wanting to eat right in the moment.

We don’t decide to eat right once and for all, that’s why diets fail. Instead, we are confronted with the decision to eat right over and over, every day, all day.

Eating right regularly takes A LOT OF “WANT TO.” We need a whole arsenal of wants that work a variety of ways, so we need to dig deeper.

I’d like your help.

In the comments below please add on to the following list and together lets see if we can come up with more ways to want to eat right than you can shake a cheese stick at.

I WANT TO EAT RIGHT WHEN:

–  I’m feeling healthy and don’t want to ruin it with a bad meal or snack

–  I’m feeling so sick of junking up my body I need something healthy

–  A healthy meal is the quickest thing to grab

–  I’m not surrounded by less healthy meal options

–  I’m with other people who are eating right

–  I’m not starving

–  I just got a new fitted shirt

–  Someone just complimented me for looking good

–  I’m working out later

–  It’s morning and I’m feeling focused and stress free