Only one more day left in this series! Make sure you check back and read over the previous posts on the other five steps.

6. Format is more important than quality.

The format of your meals is more important than the quality of your meals. On Day 3 of this series, we learned that a complete meal includes a grain dish and a separate vegetable dish. Ideally, all the components of your meal should be of the best quality possible. However, what if you go out to eat and the restaurant doesn’t serve whole grains? Or what if you go over to a friend’s house for dinner and the vegetables are not organic? In these situations, there’s nothing you can do about quality, but you can control the format. In the restaurant scenario, stick to pasta and a salad, or some white rice with a vegetable dish of sorts. In the situation at your friend’s house, don’t worry about the quality of the vegetables and enjoy the meal, as long as you try to include a grain product and a vegetable dish. If you stick to this format and are flexible with the quality of your meals, you are far more likely to consistently make healthy choices while enjoying your food and feeling satisfied.

Tomorrow we’ll be finishing up this series, so be sure to check in again for the last of the 7 Steps.