When you’re growing up, you’re always told you become who you surround yourself with.  That’s why it is always emphasized to make friends with folks who stay out of trouble and are moving their life in the right direction.

A similar saying has been used when talking about food and it goes, “You are what you eat”.  In other words, if you’re putting garbage in your system, your body will turn to well… garbage.

When kicking off a diet, a great first step after you’ve defined your goals and picked your strategy is to put yourself in a situation to be successful.  A huge first step in this direction is to get rid of all the garbage foods you have laying around the house.

Cleaning out the pantry by throwing away all of the foods which are unhealthy and not supportive of your diet strategies and goals, is a step that will really support your diet efforts especially when the going gets tough and you start having cravings.  If you don’t have negative foods readily available at your disposal when the evening cravings for something sweet comes around, you won’t have a choice but to choose something other than the bowl of ice cream or candy you used to eat.

So a great first step to officially kicking off your diet is going through your food pantry and refrigerator to get rid of all of the foods which won’t work for your diet.  Throw away the old and spoiled foods and bag up the rest and take them to your local food bank.  While those foods might be counter-productive towards your diet goals, they can positively impact someone else’s life and are worth not throwing out.

Once you’ve cleaned out all of the foods from the house which aren’t supportive of your diet goals, it’s time to fill up the house with food which *do* support your diet program.  Picking the right snacks and foods to support your diet goals is entirely dependent on the strategy and diet program you’ve chosen for yourself.

If you’ve chosen to use a low-carb diet strategy, having lots of fruits around the house won’t help you because they are full of natural sugars.  You’ll need to focus on having more protein rich foods with low carbs like jerky, Atkins Bars, Greek yogurt, etc…  If you’re simply tackling a reduced calorie diet, picking foods which can help to fill you up while also being low in carbs is helpful.  With this type of diet, fruits like cantaloupe and apples will work great as well as some of the foods mentioned which go well with a low-carb diet.

Picking the snacks and foods which support your diet strategy needs to be customized to your diet goals and specific diet plan.  Generally it’s best to have a list of 10-12 foods which can serve as snacks and the same for the other meals in the day to help keep variety if that’s something that’s important to you.

So as you’re kicking off your diet program, take a little time as part of your planning and preparation steps to go through the house and get rid of all the foods which won’t support your goals, especially if you’ll ever be tempted to eat them during your diet when the going gets tough.  Do yourself a favor and surround yourself with the foods which are going to lead to a successful diet which really makes it much easier to stay disciplined and stick to the plan.