By Molly Magunga, MS ATC, CPT, CES
Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about being successful with healthy nutrition goals. I believe the current focus on diet plans or restricted eating has created a lot more feelings of failure than success. There are too many ways to feel like you have failed or “cheated” on diets. If you are following a diet that is so restrictive that you need to “cheat” the plan to be keep your sanity, it isn’t a sustainable plan long term. The term “yo-yo diet” exists because of this. You start a diet and it seems to work. The moment you stop, you gain the weight back. You then restart the diet again or try a new one. Up, down, up, down. This doesn’t need to be your life forever. If you develop healthy nutrition goals that involve a well-balanced plan, you won’t need cheat days and you won’t fail.
No More Cheat Days
There is a difference between dieting and developing healthy eating habits. One is sustainable long-term and the other isn’t. One has the goal of making the body healthier and the other’s goal is weight loss in a healthy or unhealthy way. You can sacrifice dieting and work towards healthy nutritional goal and still lose weight. When you ditch dieting and work on other all health, you will no longer need cheat days.
The thing with dieting is that most diets are an all-or-nothing set up. A lot are set up where you cut out or severely limit whole food groups. With this mentality, you are so lacking with what your body needs that it leads to binging (over eating). This also leads to a ton of guilt.
“I can’t believe I hate that whole pizza.”
“Why did I even buy that ice cream cone.”
“I am going to have to workout twice a day all week to make up for this week.”
The sad part is that that is exactly how diet culture wants you to feel. Certain diets makes you think that there are good and bad food groups. The truth is that no food is bad in moderation and this over eating is usually because your body is so lacking for what it needs that it over compensates.
Success with your Healthy Nutrition Goals
We know that diets aren’t healthy or sustainable in the long run. If you truly want to live healthier and maintain a healthy weight, you have to play the long game. What do I mean? I mean you need to start with small, sustainable goals. Replace soda with seltzer water. Cook at home twice more a week. Pack your lunch for work instead of purchasing it. Eat one extra serving of veggies a day. Give that small goal a few weeks to work its magic and then you add to it. You will be able to maintain all those small goals over time and really make great improvements to your overall health.
Everyone is starting from different points, so I can’t really give tips on nutrition improvements. What I can provide is some tips to help you be successful with your individual nutrition goals.
- Tip 1: Practice Mindful Eating
- It’s a lot easier to stray from your goals if you are not actively involved with what you are eating. If possible, try not to eat while working or distracted with things like television. Enjoy your food and be present. Pay attention to your body while you eat. This allows you to know how you feel eating certain foods and knowing when you are full.
- Tip 2: Incorporate Your Favorite Foods
- Remember, everything in moderation. If you incorporate your favorite foods into your nutrition plan, you will be satisfied with your goals and more successful. There are ways to make your favorite foods healthier as well. If you love pasta or pizza, try different veggie toppings with your favorites to add more food groups.
- Tip 3: Be Kind to Yourself
- It’s a process making change. Don’t punish yourself if a goal isn’t as easy to maintain as you hoped or you lighten up on a previous goal. Remember why you picked those goals, refocus, and keep trying.
- Tip 4: Hydrate
- Hydration often becomes an oversight when thinking about nutrition goals. Proper hydration helps regulate your body. Thirst can also be confused with hunger, so keeping your hydration up will help you know better when you need food.
If you have any questions on this topic, feel free to contact me at mmagunga@healthworksfitness.com or comment below!
Molly’s Fitness Tip of the Week 