After years of working in the fitness industry, training thousands of clients, attending numerous courses and reading hundreds of books I've finally figured out why the vast majority of the population loves to eat a lot of junk food.
Reasons I usually see as to why so many people throw junk food down their neck, as if there is going to be a fizzy drink drought, varies. From cost related reasons like 'healthy food costs much more than unhealthy food', time related reasons like 'it's faster to order a pizza than it is to prep and cook a healthy meal' and even pseudo-scientific reasoning like 'The sugar and additives in junk food can lead to the brain getting addicted, and I'm addicted!'.
While I think all of these are very valid reasons why some people eat junk food, I still don't think they touch on maybe the biggest reason of them all, the reason that is so mind numbingly obvious. Junk food tastes absolutely amazing.
Who doesn't want to eat pizza all day every day? Who doesn't want to eat chocolate in front of the television every night? Who doesn't want to eat ice cream until it's coming out of their ears? The fact of the matter is that most junk food tastes so good, why wouldn't we want to eat it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? No wonder the obesity levels are on the rise when not only is there high availability of junk food but the quality of unhealthy food is on the rise too. Living in the North East of England, I must have seen around fifty brand new restaurants and takeaways open in the past year, all of which look mouth wateringly tasty.
I'm a Personal Trainer and sometimes I even struggle with the sweet lure of junk food. Last year I gained over 30lbs due to eating my ever-increasing weight in junk food every single day. I knew I needed to do something about it, when I was getting tired walking up the stairs and I couldn't in a million years do the workouts I was telling my clients to do.
This is when I realised, to be in with a fighting chance start eating healthy again, I had to make healthy food something that I wanted to eat and that I was excited to eat. Gone were the days of tasteless diet meals like chicken salads and in were the extremely tasty meals. Putting twists on my unhealthy favourites helped me to stay focused. Healthy versions of curries, pizza, chicken dippers, fish fingers, chips and ice cream all made the transition back to being healthy a whole lot easier. Within weeks, the weight started dropping off and I was eating real food again. Food that nourished my body, food that made me feel good instead of making me want to continue habitually ramming my mouth with greasy, sugary delicacies. Within months, a huge chunk of that 30+lbs I had acquired while giving Homer Simpson a run for his money were gone and even now, each day I'm getting healthier and I'm getting leaner.
So if you're finding yourself eating junk food like it's going out of fashion, try making your healthy food just as tasty. Replacing a twelve inch stuffed crust meat feast pizza with a boring chicken salad is going to grow old very fast. Oh and yes, I do still have the occasional junk feast, It does taste good after all.
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