How to make healthy eating a ultimate guide

 My little brother was very good at a few things from a young age. The first thing he was good at was making everybody laugh, or they were trying. For the one time, I told him he should have a little bit of protein after a workout. And he got all excited because he thought I said poutine. The second thing he was good at was eating large quantities of food. Come dinnertime, it wasn't uncommon for him to eat most of the adults at the table. Now, as you may have guessed, as a five-foot-nothing little boy, there is a downside to regularly eating full-grown men. 

Just 11 years old, I could already see that if nothing else changed. My little brother was headed for an adolescent life littered with teasing and unhealthy eating. As his older brother, I wanted to do something about it. As a nutrition or kinesiology student with an intense interest in nutrition, I knew I had to do something about it. Initially, I wasn't sure how, but I was determined to find a way. In March of 2013, I broke my leg while I was walking to class, and I slipped on some ice. Yes, that is the whole story. I was walking; there was some ice poof, broken leg. No lives were saved. No person is returned. No cool story to tell. Little did I know, as I lay there, that quickly melting puddle of ice, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

 This moment would forever change the life of my little brother; after I had surgery to attach a small titanium plate and a few screws onto my fibula, I was given two crutches and told not to put any weight on my leg for two months. This poses a unique problem, as plenty of snow and ice was still on the ground. And I still had two months left of class spread out over one of the largest campuses in the country. So, with that in mind, I made a decision that any other hard-working student in my position would make. And I decided to stop going to classes. With all this free time from studying at home, I had finally figured out how to help my little brother.

 I knew that what he needed to do was simple in theory but difficult in practice. What he needed to do was change his eating habits. From experience, I knew what he needed to change and what he didn't. Communicating this through somebody else would likely end up like the childhood game of telephone: the message gets passed along. But with little understanding and misinterpretations along the way, there's not much left of the original message, and everybody needs clarification. And my little brother's eating habits are left unchanged. So, keeping that in mind, I made one of the best decisions of my life. 

I decided to move back home for the next two weeks and make every meal my little brother would eat, educating him about proper nutrition along the way. While at home, in the kitchen, I often found myself awkwardly trying to maneuver, holding on to two crutches, hot pans, and sharp knives. It was challenging. I also had to take little breaks every few minutes to ensure the swelling in my ankle wouldn't become unbearable. Now, after just two weeks, not only were the results phenomenal, but they were also a result of a strategy that anybody could use.

 We saw such dramatic and positive results, which I'm very excited to share with you later because we changed his environment to match his goal. We made his environment work for him instead of against him. This meant replacing all of the bad options with healthy ones. This transformative and uncomplicated adjustment enabled us to easily transform his nutrition from the standard American diet, ironically referred to by its acronym, sad, to wholesome and nutritious without a hitch. Because of the planning, this wasn't the least difficult to do. 

When you remove the unhealthy options, wholesome, nutritious food becomes both plan A and B. The beauty of this solution is that it takes willpower almost completely out of the equation. If it's not there, you can't eat it. A bonus to this strategy is that no chips on the counter are calling your name. You'll likely forget about them and completely avoid the feeling of deprivation.

This may sound too simple to be true. But I assure you, it's not. When you remove the barriers to your success, and in my little brother's case, unhealthy food, and you replace or pave the way barrier-free, the road to success becomes much smoother. So, set up an environment that works for you instead of against you. This works well for any goal. For my little brother, I was the environment. I made all his food, gave him the right snacks, and answered his questions. But what would that have looked like if I wasn't there? And how can you make this work for you? To succeed, you have to minimize the difficult decisions being made. 

Say, for example, you're walking into the lobby. On the left of those tables are delicious chocolate chip cookies, squares, and everything you like. On the right side are fresh fruit and vegetables, vibrant colors, chopped nicely, crunchy, and juicy. Now you've been sitting here for two hours, so you're starving; you have a choice. Should you choose Option A on the left? Or should you choose the wholesome, nutritious broccoli on the right? Given this C scenario, it would be very hard for most of us to resist the temptation of option A. This is a real-life situation. And it happens all the time.

It's very important because of that reason. So when you remove the barriers to your success, it will become easier for you not to have to make that hard decision in the first place. Here's how you can make this strategy work for yourself. Start by finding out what your personal trigger foods are, and make a promise not to keep them in your house anymore. So that when the time comes, the decision has already been made for you. 

That's not to say you can never have these foods again. If you want one, you can always buy one at the store. Or you can keep it so that you only have them at special events like this. Just don't keep a stash underneath the cupboard. Suppose you know that they're going to be an issue for you. That's how you make your environment work for you instead of against you. That's how you make healthy eating the default and not the exception. So, if you have a personal goal of eating better, go home, find all your junk food and a neighbor you're not particularly fond of, and give it all to them.

 This strategy's basis worked for my 11-year-old brother, and it can certainly work for you, too. Let me finish off by sharing the final results of my little brother's lifestyle change. I also had one main rule that I wanted to follow with the change. At no point did I want my 11-year-old brother to feel hungry or deprived. Here's how that worked out. After the first seven days, he had lost five pounds. After the second week, it was eight pounds. But it didn't stop there.

 I went back to write exams, and he kept going. After 20 days, it was 10 pounds. And by 36 days, he had to average half a pound daily. To top it off, at 18 pounds lost, if everybody had their environment working for them instead of against them, my little brother's level of success wouldn't be the norm.