This is a long one, but a goody! Watching what and how much you eat accounts for 70-80% of hitting your health/fitness/weight goals. Im NOT a nutritionist or doctor of any kind, but from my own trial and errors and research, as well as working with others, Ive observed a few things that may be helpful to you. 10 things to consider that have worked for myself or others: 1. For the past three or four months, you’ve consistently ate healthy foods, within your nutrient & calorie needs (and KNOW for sure you are by tracking and weighing), and exercise, but still see no progress - consider getting tested for food allergies, inflammation, and thyroid problems. There could be an underlying issue making you FEEL like youre not making progress or its causing unnecessary weight fluctuations or bloating which makes you give up very easily. Best bet: a doctor who practices functional medicine. 2. Not sure you are eating healthy enough or eating too much? Try the 21-Day Fix. It has you eating what you want but takes the guess work out by using color coded containers to measure fat, carbs, proteins, fruit, etc. If you get the Challenge Pack, you save $$ plus you get Shakeology which has vitamins and superfoods to naturally help aid in fat loss. Check it out here: bit.ly/21DayF1xCP I also love PiYo’s nutritional plan. I follow flexible dieting (or IIFYM), but still want to eat healthy, whole foods (not the pop-tarts that have, unfortunately, come to characterize IIFYM). The PiYo nutritional plan helps me eat healthy foods while sticking to my macros. Just follow this link to your PiYo Challenge Pack bit.ly/ChallengePackPiyo. Just want the workout: Find the base kit here bit.ly/PiyoBasic and the deluxe kit (what I bought) here bit.ly/DeluxePiyo if you aren’t interested in Shakeology (but you should be!) 3. Get an estimate for what your calorie and nutrient intake should be for fat loss for YOUR age, size, activity level, etc. FreeDieting has a daily calorie needs calculator over to the left-hand side of their site. Once you have that estimate, you can click macro-nutrient needs and determine approximately how many fat, protein, and carb grams you should be eating for fat loss. Its just an estimate. I recommend using one method (for example “Moderate”) for 4-6 weeks and watch for progress (weight/inches lost). If there’s no progress (and you have consistently stuck to the numbers provided), then try another method (like “low carb” or “Zone”) for 4-6 weeks. Continue this until you have found a macro-nutrient combination that works for you. I DON’T recommend the extreme fat loss caloric intake, as that is too low for those of you working out and getting stronger, and would cause muscle loss and your metabolism to slow. If youve been eating next to nothing, youll need to gradually start adding calories & nutrients back in & add back that muscle youve probably lost. I’m super new at IIFYM, but if you’re interested in flexible dieting or IIFYM I can help you out for free (I’ve done lots of research on how to calculate macros, but don’t have a degree in nutrition, so take it with a grain of salt. BUT the numbers I come up with are awfully close to those given to me by coaches I had to pay to give me my macro nutrient numbers) or point you to coaches who do this thing professionally and will charge you a nominal fee to give you individualized macro numbers. 4. Track your numbers. This is where youre tracking fat, protein, and carbs. For the Women, check out the IIFYM Women facebook group for AMAZING and INSPIRATIONAL posts and advice. For both men and women, check out the IIFYM official facebook page. 5. For some, tracking calories and nutrients does NOT work. For some people, just eating healthy when they feel hungry works! If youre getting the lean body you want this way, continue! You may need fine tune your diet and possibly follow methods like IIFYM once you hit a certain point if you want to gain MORE muscle and/or more defined muscles. Just follow what’s best for YOU! You may want to check out the book Intuitive Eating if you feel like you may need guidance in eating intuitively. 6. Take control of your health RIGHT NOW and commit to a fitness program. My all-time favorite, soul-mate workout program is Turbofire (though PiYo might be beating it out of first place!). Follow the schedule and you will improve your health IMMEDIATELY. Plus, exercising to a program like Turbofire (which is intense and requires you to follow some choreography) makes you NOT want to eat junk food. Check out the challenge pack here: bit.ly/Turb0FireCP 7. Drink more water!! Aim for half your weight in ounces or more. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, then drink 100oz, or 12.5 cups, of water at a MINIMUM each day. Some people think you should drink 66% of your weight in water since two-thirds of our body is water. Start with 6-8 cups a day and work your way up to half your body weight and then two-thirds if you think you need more than half your weight in water. 8. Get enough sleep. Sleep is 1/3 of the health trifecta (nutrition and exercise are the other two-thirds). You need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a day. Even if you think you need more or less, aim for 7-9 nightly consistently for a couple of months. Sleeping too little raises cortisol, a stress hormone that causes your body to hang on to fat. Sleeping too much may mean there are underlying health reasons that you need to have checked out. 9. Identify your trigger foods. Better yet, identify your trigger emotions. Find out what causes you to really slip up and FIX the root of the problem. Maybe you have to stop buying certain foods (or drinks!). Maybe you have to go off sugar to stop a sugar addiction. Maybe you have to stop putting yourself in certain environments or stop socializing with certain people. Maybe you need professional help. Also, think about why you crave certain foods. For me, it’s a deprivation thing. Whenever I feel like I’m not allowed to have ice cream and keep it out of the house, I crave it more. But when I get a few cartons of Ben & Jerry’s and stick them in the fridge, I KNOW they are there and I can have them WHENEVER I want. And ta-da! I no longer crave it, leaving those cartons unopened for weeks at a time. When I do want it, I get just enough (I weigh my food and make sure it’s a single serving—this is because I follow IIFYM) and don’t binge. This is something I learned from The Four Day Diet by Martha Beck and highly recommend you picking up a copy (paper or e-book). 10. DONT OBSESS!!! If your mood depends on what the number on the scale says, PUT THE SCALE AWAY! We are imperfect and sometimes our diets will be, too, but that doesn’t make us horrible, terrible people who can’t control ourselves (well, maybe if there’s a bag of Oreos sitting around :) ). Every day is a new day, every MEAL is a new meal. We may slip, we may fall, but we will ALWAYS get back up. Be consistent and results WILL come. And remember, don’t let what you want your future-self to be stop you from enjoying your present-self and everything you are capable of doing RIGHT NOW. I hope this helps! :) (The skeleton of this post is adapted from a similar post by one of my upline coaches, Jenelle Summers, but I have changed it significantly to align with my own experiences and research.)
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 21:03:10 +0000
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