Stop, collaborate, and listen… errr well might just want to keep reading. There are so many ‘diets’ out there that look like they work for tons of people! The results appear promising, the people look happy, and they all make it sound so simple. They say… ‘just eat this’… simple enough. The food list looks good, but you start thinking I can’t even handle eating one meal of salad and this funky weird orange things called carrots – how am I going to only eat these things!? You end up eating nothing but vegetables for 2 days, hate life, get low on energy, and give up. Head down and hand in a bag of chips, thinking when will I figure this out?! All the questions run through your head…
Do I know where to start?
What diet should you try?
Why did this not work?
Is this even possible for someone like me?
Don’t get discouraged so quick. There is hope. There is a plan that works for you. There is a way to start. And here are 3 simple ways to get started. BUT follow them in order to not overload yourself. It’s all about the baby steps.
- Create a food journal
You’ve heard it before. You’re going to hear it again. Often times when I’m working with clients, MOST of the food they are consuming is already healthy for them! This is good news because you won’t need to worry about changing as much as you thought. Creating a food journal is important because it allows you to..
- Gain awareness into what you’re consuming.
- Become aware of the portion sizes.
- Find out how much ‘snacking’ you’re actually doing. But most importantly, it helps figure out the starting point. The groundwork of what needs adjusted and tweaked to help you establish healthy LONG TERM habits. I recommend writing down everything for AT LEAST 7 DAYS.
- Change one meal at a time
This is the point where you start feeling like giving up, you made a food log and don’t know what to do. You’ve tracked your foods for at least a week. You’ve been conscious of your eating. You might have already eliminated the ice cream at night, cold turkey style. No, I don’t mean by replacing your late night ice cream with cold turkey from the fridge. It’s been a week and you’re not seeing the results. take a deep breathe Have patience. You’re ready to make the next change. It’s time to target the first meal to change. Try one of these steps, or all of the steps.
- More protein
- Less carbs
- Smaller portion
Once again, all of this varies based upon your goals and current status of eating. You analyzed your meals, or had a health coach analyze it for you, and maybe perhaps breakfast was the first one to fix. This varies from person to person. Start with the one meal you know you overeat, eat a non nutritious food, or maybe you DON’T eat this meal and should start.
- Understand it won’t be perfect
This has nothing to do with actually intaking a new food, changing your eating habits, monitoring calories, or following a plan. It’s almost the opposite. It is about understanding that it won’t be perfect. Think about anything you’ve ever tried in life. From learning to walk, to learning a new job, to learning a sport, to making a new recipe for some delicious chicken salad that you just started incorporating to your lunch. At one point you didn’t know what you were doing, but tried and figured it out.
You have proven to yourself that you can learn new things and adapt to new experiences. So you know you are able to do this. Believe in yourself. There will be mistakes. There will be set backs. But everyday you will continually work to get better. Don’t hate yourself because of a meal you fucked up and ate too many tacos instead of the 2 you told yourself. (Trust me, the taco trucks are delicious) Just be prepared to hop back on track the next meal and offset it with something not as dense in calories. The only way to fail is to stop trying. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
