A Healthy Dinner

Last Updated On: 21 September 2025

When it comes to having a healthy dinner, if you are someone who is easily drawn into what we might call Craving Foods (or non foods as some would say) it can feel like a punishment and totally hard work, to have to eat a balanced and healthy meal, but why is that?

I want to explore, and make no apologies for borrowing Paul McKenna’s phrase, Clean Plate Club phrase because I took my NLP training with him and Richard Bandler, and describes the issue clearly.

It’s a great phrase can you relate to it as I do from childhood? Then like me you were probably taught that it was wasteful or rude to leave food on your plate which didn’t leave much room when it comes to forming life-long and unwanted habits.

Your parents know best

Of course your parents thought they were doing the right thing, as their aim was to get some decent nutrients inside their kids to keep them fighting fit especially during the post-war ‘fifties, when I grew up, alongside a sense of you don’t know how lucky you are.

All parents do the very best with what they know at any given time, and it’s okay to appreciate that in them no matter what scars they’ve inadvertently imparted 🙂

Were you ever threatened with the starving children in Africa line (ouch!) and how wasteful you were being when there are children in the world who would be more than grateful. The guilt piled on but all these factors combine into a mix of how we learn to turn to food for comfort. You can read about how that plays out in later life here…

NB: Of course the practicalities of transporting leftover food from your plate to anyone completely goes over a kids head. But the trauma and guilt such careless words inflict may be one of your triggers.

Parental awareness about a healthy dinner

Your folks did the best they knew how, but these days society has a more global, social, economic, political awareness and understanding of how this can fill a growing child with some pretty poor coping strategies.

Parents are now far more savvy when it comes to employing more creative tactics that help their kids eat foods they’d not wittingly chose, i.e. vegetables.

And it’s not your fault, because over the recent decades we’ve been fed (if you’ll pardon the pun) a range of confused messages about what merits a healthy lifestyle, so it’s understandable if you’ve not known which way to jump.

This is partly what lead me to, unexpectedly, do what I do now.

My own search reveals that we need to apply a range of tangibles, among them is a relaxed approach to food, eating and weight, and reset any out-of-sync subconscious programming around this often complex topic.

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Step up to the plate

If you’re ready to ditch the emotional roller-coaster my approaches are guaranteed to bring about a very noticeable difference? Click through on the button below to explore having what you want instead.

Get Off The Hamster Wheel