The 4 P’s of health for food lovers

The problem of health for food lovers

You like food. I get it. I LOVE food. Being a food influencer makes life pretty tricky. There are so many good options and occasions to indulge. Thinking about how I can work this lifestyle more (eat more) has become a passion project around the start of a new year.

How do you come up with realistic New Years health resolutions as a food lover? I’ve had years where anything went and that didn’t work out. I didn’t feel well (not even needing to reference not looking well) after eating what I wanted, however much I wanted, and whenever I wanted. So, how do I eat and visit all the places I do throughout the year?

It’s not easy to maintain a lifestyle like mine, but I live by my 4 “P” principles to keep things balanced mentally and physically. I’m not a nutritionist or dietician – so, this isn’t health advice but let me know anything resonates.

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The 4 P’s of Donut Critic:

Prioritize

Prioritizing is all about picking and eating the food you want. Ultimately, this means that you leave the rest. The “rest” are often fillers and other food that doesn’t payoff in taste or satisfaction. For example, I love Mexican food – but I’ll leave out any rice that is flavorless. Pasta has to have a bangin’ sauce or I’m not touching it. Bread not the best? Don’t touch it. Basically, you want potent flavors, rich combos, and other experiences that are memorable.

Portion

I don’t do well on a restrictive diet. Portioning is about eating the foods you normally eat but just reducing the portion. This helps my body feel like it’s not being starved by fad diets. Portioning is an easy way for you to feel comfortable with a calorie plan without feeling like you’re eating like a chicken. I know restrictive diets can help reset but they’ve only made me crave more normal food even more… and that has always led to binging.

Play

Not everyone feels comfortable and/or likes being in a gym (especially in some gyms that are more dating pools than places to work out your body). For some, a normal gym routine is a make of break habit. I am not a gym rat in the slightest. I have some reps I’ll run through when I get a chance to visit the gym – using machinery reps I can’t easily replicate at home. What I really like to do for working out is to find a sport that helps me sweat without thinking about it. Right now it’s pickleball for me. I’ve found some other players that want to play a few times a week. In general, I don’t do something I hate – I try to make exercise fun. It will make the difference. I have started small weights and that has brought some fun back into strength training. I’ll report back how that evolves this next year.

Payoff

This is the fun part. I’ve found that I produce better results when I incentivize myself with rewards. If you’re not putting something out there to keep you driving towards a goal, then you’ll burn yourself out. Celebrate your wins.

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Again, this isn’t advice that I directly recommend using – just recapping my experience with health for food lovers so I can still find ways to eat foods that I love. Going on a strict diet has never worked for me. So, doing something more sensible like my 4 P’s has helped me feel good. It has also made it sustainable over long periods of time. I said goodbye to fad diets years ago. Now, I apply simple math to make life work in my dessert world. My output needs to exceed my input. If you need real help then seek advice from a health professional.