I wanted to tell you all my stance on "dieting", because essentially everyone is doing it to some extent on a regular basis. Now, I'm not here to demonize any diets out there. Some people eat a ketogenic diet to manage brain disorders, some eat a gluten-free diet to manage celiac disease, some eat FODMAP to manage digestion dysfunction. These are all necessary modifications to eating habits to function at an optimal level and manage disease or disorder.
I'm talking about diets strictly for the purpose of weight loss. I find that the issue with people doing mainstream, fad-diets is that they teach you nothing about nutrition - on Weight Watchers, you can sacrifice a few points for the day if you really want a donut, and skip dinner in the process. The rest encompasses calorie counting which I think can be a helpful tool, but if you're only counting calories, you aren't counting macro & micronutrients. You're supposed to eat 1,700 calories in a day and you eat a family pack of mini eggs and a McDonald's meal, and you're golden? Nuh-uh, honey.
This brings me to flexible dieting/IIFYM and intuitive eating, which people tend to cycle between. I think these are perhaps the highest caliber of "dieting" although I don't consider them dieting, so much as eating habits. Diet, in the context of what I'm attempting to convey, is defined as "restricting oneself to a small amount or special kinds of food in order to lose weight" and the very basis of these eating-styles is no food is off-limits. The word I am troubled by is restrict. This word elicits some kind of brain chemistry that gives the food you're not allowed an alluring glow. Have you ever decided to cut out simple carbs, and never craved bread so much in your life? Putting parameters around foods, labelling them "clean", "good", "bad", "fattening" - this causes issues when you do find yourself eating the food you think is BAD. Energetically, consciously consuming something you believe is bad for you is a form of self-punishment. Louis C.K. has a bit about this in Chewed Up where he says "No one is happy in the Cinnabon line ... You don't stop eating when you're full, you stop eating when you hate yourself."
Diets often incur a pattern of dieting, falling off track at some point because adherence to restriction is nearly impossible, self-hatred & a sense of failure, dieting again. What I believe is most important to start with is understanding why you have an unhealthy or imbalanced relationship with food. If you didn't have some issues there, you wouldn't consider dieting, so start there. Once you have addressed these underlying areas, you need to adopt a lifestyle -- now I know we've all heard this now cliche #fitspo quote about health being a lifestyle, but it's true. The way you eat needs to be sustainable, it needs to integrate easily into your life. Diets usually interfere with life, consume your thoughts and time, disrupt events and outings. Eating "flexibly" eliminates these issues.
So, how do you start? Well, if you're just beginning, I think counting macronutrients is extremely helpful. But first, start by plugging what you eat in a normal day into MyFitnessPal or MyMacros+ ... It's extremely EYE OPENING. Shit adds up real quick! A tall latte and oat bar from Starbucks, a takeout lunch downtown with coworkers, a handful of almonds, a pit stop at Mac's on the way home for Skittles, dinner and one more mindless snack before bed. I guarantee your 'breakfast' alone put you at 600 calories already. Studies have shown some hilarious and equally unfortunate data that people underestimate how many calories they consume and overestimate how many calories their exercise or activity burns. Your average one hour spin class torches only 400 calories, so I hate to break it to you, but that's just your latte, homeslice.
Then you (I would recommend you let a certified coach do this though) can calculate your macronutrient/calorie requirements based on your unique body composition, daily activity, desire to lose, gain or maintain weight, response to macronutrient ratios, dieting history and more -- then you can begin to eat with intention, mindfulness and awareness.
Once you've tracked your macronutrient consumption for a while, which to garner the most accuracy does require you weigh/measure your food, you'll start to understand what foods are good sources of fiber, carbohydrates, fats and protein and various vitamins and minerals. You can then begin to eat intuitively, which does not require weighing or measuring anymore. This is how I eat now, after 18 months of counting macros and getting a good sense of my body's needs and response to various foods. Now, I know some of you are thinking what I used to think. Weighing your food? How obsessive. Especially for someone like myself, who is incredibly prone to disordered eating and obsessive tendencies regarding food.
Remember it is a guideline, a tool and starting point for you to understand how much food your body actually requires to function without over or under-eating, otherwise you're just guessing and what you don't measure, you don't manage. It's not something you need to do forever, or at all if you feel uncomfortable. I also believe if we genuinely listen to our bodies - which hardly anyone does, let me tell you - we will eat what we need. People eat when they're bored, when they're nervous, when they're celebrating, when they're mourning, when they feel they deserve a treat, when they hate themselves and binge, when they're actually just dehydrated. If you ate good quality, natural, whole foods as the greater majority of your diet, ate when you were truly hungry, ate things you had no guilt surrounding & ate mindfully, really allowing your taste buds to enjoy each marvelous bite instead of robotically shovelling food into your face hole while you watch television ..... You would be right on track to great, optimal health and a maintainable desired physique.
Where does this leave us then? I'm telling you. Stop dieting, stop restricting. Eat flexibly. If you want chocolate, eat it and ditch the "bad food" mentality - but, eat it and truly enjoy the experience of each bite. You'll find you won't overeat it or binge. Understand the building blocks of food (macronutrients and micronutrients) and ensure you're receiving a balanced, varied amount that suits your unique body composition. Tend to your relationship surrounding food, choose whole foods (there's too many talented foodies on iG making insanely delicious, good-for-you recipes for you to say healthy foods are boring) and consider getting a basic understanding of your caloric needs.
The topic of food and eating is overwhelming, so feel free to shoot me a li'l DM or e-mail if you have any questions, need recipe ideas, want to join the fuck-diets campaign or just want to chat! Xo
No comments