Break Your Fast Food Habit in 7 Simple Steps

How to Break Your Fast Food Habit in 7 Simple Steps

Fast food was originally made popular in the United States in the 1950s in mostly suburban areas, and then into urban areas in the 1960s.

The business model was to produce food that was inexpensive, quick, and had a high profit-margin. It solved the problem of mothers having less time to cook meals due to them increasingly entering the workforce.

Fast food franchises have done a great job of providing millions of jobs. However, they also provide a very easy way for people to eat unhealthy foods, and form a habit of it.

Fast food is easy and generally tasty, and our brains like both of those things. That’s why it’s so easy to form a habit of eating fast food.

I’m going to share with you how you can break your fast food habit in 7 simple steps, though.

#1 Decide WHY You Want to Break Your Fast Food Habit

Deciding why you want to break your fast food habit is the most important step. Here’s why.

If you can’t think of a reason to start or stop any habit or behavior, you simply won’t follow through.

Think about it. If your doctor tells you that you should get 8 hours of sleep every night instead of the 5 you usually get, will you change your sleep schedule?

You will if you’ve noticed in the past that you feel a lot better if you’ve gotten 8 hours of sleep. However, if you feel better with only your usual 5 hours of sleep and feel sluggish with 8 hours, then you probably won’t take his or her advice.

So, you want to decide why YOU want to break your fast food habit, so you have motivation to do so.

Do you feel better when you don’t eat it as frequently? Is it getting expensive? Do you want to set a better example for your children and cook more meals for the family?

Whatever your reason is, hang onto it. It’ll be what moves you along in the fast food habit-breaking process.

#2 Determine How Often You Eat Fast Food Currently

You need to establish where you are starting from, in order to make a plan and measure your progress.

Ask yourself how often you currently eat fast food. Be honest with yourself.

If you need to, take a week to actually keep track of your fast food meals. It may be eye-opening, which can help to motivate you further in your quest to break your fast food habit.

#3 Ask Yourself Why You Eat Fast Food

Now that you know how often you typically eat fast food, you’re going to ask your self why.

What leads you order the fast food in the first place? Or if you aren’t the one who orders it, what leads you to eat it?

Is it a feeling of lack of time to prepare something yourself to eat? Is it intense feelings of hunger that need to be relieved quickly?

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Is it because you pass by it on your way home from work every day? Or maybe your kids love it and you cave in every time they ask? You also may not feel that you have time to pack your lunch for work, so get fast food from down the road.

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Don’t be ashamed of your “why,” just be aware. You have a reason you decide to eat fast food when you do.

The reason for any behavior always comes down to us trying to solve a problem.

Your human brain is always trying to find the easiest, most desirable solution to your problems. Fast food is just not necessarily the best solution for your short- or long-term wellbeing.

#4 Commit to a Small Change

If you wanted to run a marathon, but have never even run more than a mile, would you start with a 10 mile run for your training program? I would hope not.

It’s the same thing when it comes to breaking a habit. You are likely to have difficulty making a big jump, and you most certainly won’t want to stick with it.

You may feel motivated at first because of the desire to succeed in the challenge to break your fast food habit. However, if you are relying heavily on that motivation, it won’t carry you all the way through.

This has been shown in a multitude of studies, but I’ve also experienced it myself.

Don’t Make the Mistake I Did

A few winters ago, I decided I wanted to start drawing. I had drawn and painted a tiny bit when I was younger, and discovered I was decent at it.

I really enjoyed getting back into it and would do about two drawings a week, getting encouragement from my family.

I then made a huge jump and decided I wanted to start my own side hustle selling my art. I decided I would learn how to make a website, accept commissions, and do all the things. All of this while still working full time as a Physician Assistant, doing all of my sports, and being a wife and step-mom.

So, I built the website myself, started the business, took on more commissions, made a few thousand dollars profit in just a few months, and then…burned out completely.

It was too much. I dissolved the business, took down the website, and haven’t touched my art supplies in a year. I still have negative emotions about that.

I don’t want you to make the same mistake with breaking your fast food habit (or with anything for that matter). It’s not a good feeling.

So, moral of the story. Start small.

Choose one small change you can make to break your fast food habit, that you truly believe you can do and maintain with relative ease.

For example, instead of eating fast food 5 times a week, you can decide you’ll eat it 4 times a week. Or instead of getting the large size, get the medium.

Don’t cut it completely out, just slowly work your way toward more healthy.

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• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

#5 Carry Out the Change for a Set Amount of Time

Once you decide what your small change will be, decide on a number of weeks to practice this. Notice I said “practice.” That’s because you will use this time period to test out the change and see if you need to make any adjustments.

Whenever you are trying something new, you never really know with 100% certainty if it will work, or if there is a better way to do it. The same thing is true when it comes to changing your eating habits.

#6 Make Changes if Necessary

Once you reach the end of your test period, make any changes. This can be in two different directions.

The first is, making the change smaller or easier if you felt that you weren’t successful.

You may have made too difficult of a change, which is normal, especially for high-achievers like yourself.

Of note, there are other challenges that may have come into play, which I help you with in Eating Habit Overhaul, a program designed to help career women reverse their bad eating habits.

However, for now, just make the change a little simpler.

The second direction you can take is scaling it up if you feel comfortable.

Ask yourself if you felt the change was easy to make and if you want to test out the next level. If so, then make a slightly larger change.

If you initially ate fast food 5 times a week and for 3 weeks, cut it down to 4 times a week, then for the next 3 weeks, try eating fast food just twice a week. Or you can change it up and still eat it 4 times a week, but choose a slightly healthier option each time.

Get creative. That’s the fun part.

#7 Repeat

A key component to making any behavior change become a new habit is repetition. This fuels automaticity. You are strengthening the new neuropathways, so they fire quickly and more automatically.

Believe it or not, but when you break your fast food habit (or any habit), you are essentially just creating a new habit. That new habit is not acting on whatever was leading you to eat the fast food, and instead choosing another option, the healthier option.

Final Notes

Breaking a bad eating habit is no easy task, but by breaking it down into simple steps, your chance of success is much higher. Remember that just as any habit can be formed, any habit can also be broken.

If you need some extra help with breaking bad eating habits, then take a look at what you’ll receive in the free masterclass on How to Break Bad Dinner and Snack Habits (for Career Women).

It’s way more than your average free course, because as your mentor, I want you to get results that create momentum for even more incredible results.

Results that are life-changing. Because you deserve to live your best life.