Remove the Term "Diet" From Your Vocabulary

What’s your opinion on keto? Have you tried Hebalife? What about Isagenix? I heard that stuff makes you ripped! Currently I’m intermittent fasting and I gotta tell you I’m already down 6 pounds in a day!
            Any of this sound familiar to you? Seems like these days everyone is on some crazy fad diet they read about in a famous magazine. The thing is, all of these diets work to a degree. However, they are usually unsustainable. Keto makes you cut carbs completely out of your diet. Isagenix stuffs you so full of supplements and protein shakes you forget what real food actually tastes like. Herbalife can make you eat as low as 500 calories per day. Have people lost weight on these plans? Absolutely. So, in retrospect they work. But what percentage of people actually sticks to them? Also what happens if you fall off the wagon on one of these plans? I had a girl this week telling me she ate too many carbs after being in ketosis for a decent period of time and got so sick she had to call out of work. This happened to her multiple times. I used to date a girl who did Isagenix. She would lose fifteen to twenty pounds on it and the gain ten to fifteen back when she started eating real food again. All while spending hundreds of dollars a month on supplements.  Herbalife is currently under lawsuit for some of the products they offer because they have caused serious health complications. Does any of this sound fun? Didn’t think so. Now don’t get me wrong results can be achieved through any diet as long as its done properly. But, what if there were an easier way? A way where you could eat normal food and shed the unwanted fat you’ve been carrying around trying so desperately to get rid of. Or maybe you want to add a couple inches to those arms so your shirts fit better. Well such a way exists. Let me teach you how.
            The secret way to looking and feeling how you want is to slowly, and progressively change your lifelong eating habits. Why would you ever start a diet you didn’t plan to continuously follow for the rest of your life? If you do this you are setting yourself up for failure ninety percent of the time. It makes zero sense to start a diet to lose weight, to then discontinue the diet once you achieve your goal weight, to again gain the weight back in the first place because you never learned to control your daily habits and start all over. Or, to start a diet you absolutely hate that is unsustainable to any normal human fall off the wagon and gain more weight than you originally started with. Again, sound familiar? The best way to control your weight at all times is learning to have a good relationship with food. Food is a very simple thing. It’s fuel for your body just like gasoline is fuel for your car. We need food to fuel our bodies to do things everyday like go to work, or take a walk, or sit on the couch. Our bodies always require energy. However, unlike a car we can overfill our gas tanks. Which is something most of us do on a regular basis because we deserve that burger after a hard work week right? Well only if we want to regret putting on our pants in 5 months. Do we deserve that? No we have enough stress in our lives as it is. All food is fuel. Some fuel is better than others in cars as it is in food. Regardless we all need a certain amount of food to function every day. That being said, the more you do every day, the more fuel you will need. I’m sure it makes sense that the 200 pound weight lifter is going to need more energy than the 130 pound homebody. So if you’re trying to change your body you need to figure out what steps you need to take to achieve your goal. This means getting educated. Now, I’m not saying you have to take a thousand hour course in nutrition, but you will have to put some thought into it.
            By now I’m sure you’re thinking well how do I figure out how much fuel I actually need? Well there’s a few ways. The first and probably simplest way is trial and error. Thousands, maybe even millions of people have lost weight without ever weighing a single piece of chicken breast. How did they do it? Well they tracked their progress and made smart decisions. Let’s say you want to lose fat. Get a scale, a body fat monitor (handheld can be bought on Amazon for $20) or use your gym’s, and get a tape measure. My best advice weigh, measure, and test your body fat every two weeks. If it’s not moving in the direction you want figure out what is going wrong. If your weight isn’t moving or is going up then you’re eating too much. If your weight is going down or staying the same but your body fat is going up you’re eating too little. Say you want to build muscle. The same three things are needed. If your weight is going up steadily and you are gaining inches in the areas you want you’re doing the right thing. However, if your weight is dramatically increasing or you’re gaining inches in areas you don’t want it’s time to back the portion sizing down a notch. Another way to do it is to use an app like MyFitnessPal. Apps like these have helped thousands of people achieve their weight loss goals and can definitely help people be more educated on their food decisions and nutrition label reading. MyFitnessPal will calculate how many calories you need every day and help you stay consistent with tracking your food. This process can get tedious, but I believe it’s a helpful tool for anyone looking to lose weight.
            Now, this is the best part to both options I just mentioned. YOU GET TO EAT WHAT YOU WANT AND AVOID WHAT YOU DON’T, within reason. Obviously binge eating cakes will not really help you get anywhere. The most important part of this process is that you learn how to control the food in your life. A lot of people use crash diets as a crutch, and yes sometimes they work. But, all too often I have seen someone fluctuate in weight regularly getting on and off crash diets. So please, remove the word diet from your vocabulary,. Learn how your body works. And even enlist the help of someone more knowledgeable along the way. If you want continuous sustainable results, learn your body. Pay attention and be mindful of your food. If you indulge a bit here and there that’s perfectly fine. Being healthy is about enjoying your food and looking good. As a professional in the business I promise you that if you follow these guidelines you can look and feel the way you want without ever dramatically changing what you are used to eating and enjoy eating (again within reason). Stay strong guys and girls.