Are you stuck in a diet rut? It happens even to food-obsessed individuals. The list of reasons could be endless. Just to mention but a few – anxiety, stress, or psychological and emotional issues. Athletes, too, are familiar with the feeling – sometimes they have to put up with the same routine of eating to meet their nutrient needs.
Those who have tried a weight loss or maintenance diet might have crossed paths with food boredom as well. It is fundamental human nature to experience apathy one way or another. Here’s how to keep enjoying your meals.
#1: Try New Herbs and Spices
Using spices you hadn’t tried before or had forgotten about is by far the fastest, easiest way to turn a bland routine diet into an exciting fare. Add seasonings such as spices, herbs, zest, citrus juice, wine, vinegar, garlic, and onions. Combating food boredom with dried chili, sumac, garam masala, smoked paprika, and fennel seeds, among other seasonings, is not a bad idea either.
#2: Start a Tradition
Get your creativity on by coming up with a weekly theme for your meals. For instance, have a pizza night, introduce taco Tuesdays, meatless Mondays, and don’t forget the herbs-only day. What’s more, change the ingredients you use each week to keep things exhilarating.
#3: Cook Foods that Look as Awesome as they Taste
Sometimes our appetite is affected by what we see. Try finding recipes that look great on your plate. Also, go ahead and obtain some unique, attractive utensils that transform your table to a 5-star. Consider using exotic-inspired cookware like a tagine pot as the center piece to get rid of boredom.
#4: Involve the Kids
Let your kids help you find a week’s food plan, so you don’t have to bear the burden of deciding what’s for dinner each day. Don’t stop there-prepare a menu and cook the food together!
#5: Do the Grocery Shopping
If someone does it on your behalf, consider going grocery shopping yourself, and while at it, track down some veggies you haven’t been eating or are unfamiliar with. There must be a recipe with that vegetable online. You could find it and see what your food boredom has to say.
#6: Eat Out
Are you tired of your cooking? Ditch your food and find a restaurant with meals that match what’s on your diet. Even better, make it a social thing by eating with other people. We tend to eat more when we have company, and studies have even shown people who live alone are prone to unhealthy eating habits.
#7: Stock Your Kitchen
Fill your fridge and kitchen shelves with healthy foods that you enjoy eating. Keeping your kitchen stocked comes in handy when you are cooking for several people. Not to mention, having an extensive list of options increases your chances of finding foods you feel like eating at any time.
#8: Dig Out Your Kitchen Gadgets
When did you last use the waffle maker, slow cooker, vegetable spiralizer, or pasta maker (like this one from UnoCasa)? Getting reacquainted with your kitchen equipment may not only make meal preparation fun but also help with food boredom.
#9: Look for Recipes Online
From food networks to Pinterest, the internet never runs out of inspiring new recipes. Whether you are looking for easy, delicious, good-looking, paleo, vegan, keto, or just something fun, there’ll always be several options just waiting. Why don’t you browse around and find something that makes your mouth water again?
#10: Shuffle Your Meals
The essence of having a meal plan is to distribute your calorie and nutrients intake over several meals throughout the day. This leaves so much room for switching things around! If you don’t feel like having that mid-morning weight loss smoothie, then, by all means, push it to another time of the day. Just don’t eat your heaviest meal before bedtime – that’s unhealthy.
#11: Avoid Gassy foods
Greasy fried foods and any other stuff that gives you a bloated stomach may interfere with your hunger and appetite as they make you feel full and uncomfortable. If you have this problem, try avoiding carbonated drinks, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, and anything else that’s gassy.
#12: Get Creative
A healthy diet doesn’t have to be bland or tasteless. For instance, consider giving the conventional pasta or rice a makeover with unique ingredients such as zucchini or using cauliflower crust on your pizza. Just keep thinking outside the box, and you will never have to deal with food boredom.
Final Notes
Diet boredom is often the result of sticking to the same routine for too long. The easiest way to keep healthily meeting your nutrient needs is often to make changes in your meal plans, recipes, place of eating, cooking methods, and list of options. Who knows? You might even end up craving the old diet routine again!