Green Means GO

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” — Confucius.

One of the most complicated parts of a healthy lifestyle, for me, is meal choice and planning. Knowing what to eat can really be the make or break of feeling successful. For many years, I have thought I was eating healthy and could not understand why nothing changed. I would eat foods I perceived as healthy and feel good about my choices, only to find out what I thought was healthy wasn’t healthy for me at all. This can be very frustrating. Far worse, the complexity of this can be very overwhelming and truly make one feel like giving up.

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I am about keeping it simple to keep it accessible for all. I need simplicity to feel motivated. Weighing food, calculating macros, meal prepping and all those other strategies are good, but have not been sustainable for me for many reasons. In order to avoid that, I invested in a good food logging app to better understand my eating habits. I have used My Fitness Pal for years and when in doubt about my eating patterns, I always go back to logging to see what is happening. Another app I have used is Noom, an app meant to teach you about your eating patterns by categorizing foods into categories, not based on good or bad, but rather on how much you should consume of each. Both are great apps to gain insight into your eating patterns and uncover why you are not getting the results you want.

Another simple tool I use is Dr Sears Wellness Institute’s Traffic Light Eating which I learned about during my Health Coach certification courses. Traffic Light Eating is based on the familiar concept of driving a car. A traffic light is meant to guide use when driving and can be used in the same way when making choices about food. It’s so simple, Dr Sears uses this with his pediatric patients! 

Green means “go”
Yellow tells us to “slow down”
Red means “stop” and think

Again, like Noom’s system, there are no judgements made about foods we eat and doesn’t ban foods. We all know that taboo placed on foods can make them more desireable. Rather, this tool focuses us on how often and how much of certain foods we consume. Below are the breakdowns of each category on our traffic light used to help us when making selections of food.

Green Light Foods

Green light foods include all fruits and vegetables. They are grown and not manufactured or process artificially. These foods are low in calories and high in nutrients. They provide color to our plates and can be eaten raw or cooked. Green light foods are foods which can be eaten generally free of worry, barring any personal health issues you may have. They are considered go foods and make great choices for all meals and snacks and should play a prominent role in your selections. They were also the group I noticed I wasn’t eating enough of.

Yellow Light Foods

Yellow light foods are fine to eat everyday, but in moderation as they are considered slow down foods. You do not have to give them up, or feel badly if you do eat them. These are the foods, I learned, made up my entire diet. Yellow light foods include: pasta, rice, bread, tortillas, noodles, eggs, lean meat, chicken, low fat yogurt, nuts and seeds, olive oil, soy foods, whole grains, fish, low fat cheese, and vegetable oil.

Red Light Foods

Red light foods are known as “stop” and think foods. We don’t have to eliminate them entirely from our lives, but we should look for different options, or eat them less frequently. When we do choose then, we should pay specific attention to our portions and go smaller. These foods are low in nutrients and high in calories, fat or sugar. Many contain artificial sweeteners or trans-fats. Think about that cookie you ate last night, that would fall in the red zone. You wouldn’t want to eat the whole bag, or eat them every day, but one cookie will not make you fat or a failure. This group, I learned, was my go to group especially when tired, upset or super hungry.

All these tools are very easy to use and guide you as you learn more about your food choices. I appreciated that none of them made me feel badly about myself for my eating patterns. Rather, they seek to empower you through building your knowledge about food. I find myself making better choices in my overall daily eating, including when eating at a restaurant. The biggest change for me was in increase in my intake of vegetables and fruit. 

I recommend you start by looking at your pantry, refrigerator or dinner plate. Start to think about which category the majority of your fall falls in. No judgement, just notice. If you don’t want to do this, I recommend you think about using an app to guide you. Log your food and notice what the analysis tells you about your food patterns. Once you have this data, you can make some adjustments to your food selection and notice what impact it has on you. They say what gets measured gets improved. I fully agree, but what I’d like to measure is not my quantity of food, but my knowledge about the quality of it. 

If you have any questions about the apps, or traffic light eating, feel free to reach out through email at laurakump@reclaiminghealth.blog , Instagram or through the comment section below.