We’re giving new year, new you vibes as you set your health and wellness goals for 2021. We’re refreshing our guide to reaching your dietary resolutions.

We spend a lot of time talking about the health disparities that differentially disadvantage Black women in the United States compared to our White counterparts. These disparities are most obvious in lifestyle-related chronic diseases like high blood pressure (hypertension), stroke, heart attack, type 2 diabetes, extreme weight gain (obesity) and obesity-related cancers.

These diseases are “lifestyle-related” because people can usually lower their risk of developing these diseases by practicing everyday healthy habits (eating, exercise, and sleep). You read that right- our healthy habits are our greatest health super power…emphasis on power!

Of course, we acknowledge that these habits don’t develop in a vacuum. Our health choices are largely influenced by our health options. For example, Black neighborhoods have less access to nutritious foods and more access to disease-causing ultra-process foods compared to their White counterparts. That means we’ll have to work harder to adopt healthy eating habits simply to have the same opportunity for wellness… sound familiar, no?

Still, it’s key to know that the power to make positive health change for ourselves and in our families is in our hands! Especially, after a tumultuous year like 2020, it helps to remember that we do have the agency to improve our lives (in some ways at least).

Listen. If you’re someone who felt at one point like you would inevitably develop one of the preventable diseases (like type 2 diabetes) that plague multiple generations of your family, you need to know this. Eating more veggies, fruits, and other whole foods in 2021 could be the lifestyle change that completely shifts the trajectory of your family’s healthy history. It could stop with you!

But, health habits aren’t easy to shift. Keep reading to see the tricks that doctors and behavioral scientists use to make healthy living the easy default decision.

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It’s easy to get lost in the maze of your eating options.

You don’t have to be superhuman to change your eating habits. Life design trumps will power.

If you’re hoping to change your eating habits, and you’re not where you want to be today, there’s a reason for that. The reason is not that you’re pathetic, or weak-willed, or undeserving or lazy or any of the other mean things that little voice in our heads tells us.

If you’re motivated to make a change, but you can’t seem to maintain it…there’s one main reason: Your life design.

Your life is set up in a way that keeps you exactly where you are, with eating habits you wish you could shake. It’s not just you, it’s a species thing.

We’re not as evolved as we’d like to imagine. Behavioral Psychology research shows that human behavior, like that of dogs and mice, is heavily influenced by our environments. Our lives are a maze of factors that influence our choices. Remember that time you ate a dozen doughnuts in one sitting? (Don’t be coy, we’ve all been there)… You blamed your poor will power. But, that was less of a will power problem and more of a maze design error.

We’re not engineered to withstand the temptation of all that sweet fluffiness. Put 12 doughnuts in anyone’s face, and they’ll be gone by the end of the day. *Periodt*.

Switch out *doughnuts* for whatever your guilty pleasure is, and this starts to sound eerily familiar doesn’t it?

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These decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. Let’s check the context:

It’s Thursday morning, you’re rushing off to work. You had a hectic morning getting the kids ready for school. You dropped them off- late. You made cereal for the kids’ breakfast, but you didn’t take time to eat your own breakfast. Now you’re hungry, which is a horrible way to start a work day. You stop your car at a red light and notice the Dunkin’ Donuts to your right. “Why not?”, you think. “I need to eat something, and I deserve a treat for the morning I had”. You pull into the drive-thru. You could buy a breakfast sandwich, but let’s be honest, you want something sugary that melts in your mouth. You want a doughnut. When it’s time to order, you notice the sale on a dozen. Might as well get all 12. You can always share with your work friends. You drive away justifying your choice. Shifting the doughnut box from your lap to the passenger’s seat, you reach in and grab a glazed one to eat. You did buy them as a breakfast treat, after all. You turn up the radio on your fave artist.

Fast forward 15 minutes. You pull into the parking lot at work. Half the doughnut box is missing. You’ve reached and eaten, and reached and eaten 6 doughnuts…without even realizing it. You know you can’t bring this half-eaten box into work! So, you leave the box in the car. Before you know it, you’re back at the car eating more doughnuts on your lunch break and finishing them off on the way home. The kids’ bus beat you home, and the place is madness. You start your usual routine of checking homework while checking whatever you just put on the stove, and a push notification pops up on your phone. You turn it face down. “Not today, MyFitnessPal. You won’t catch me logging 12 doughnuts…”

How on earth did you get here? More importantly how do you leave and NEVER come back? Re-design your maze to [mostly] avoid temptation. Figure out how you ended up with access to a dozen doughnuts. Then make it VERY difficult for that to happen again.

Follow these 3 steps to change your eating by re-designing your maze.

1) See The Maze

What Influences Our Choices?