A lot of clients when they come to me are looking for a better way of eating but come with tonnes of limitations and beliefs from previous experiences and reading…
What people really want:
they want a better relationship with food.
they want to know how many calories to eat?!
They want to eat ANY food they like.
Vitally, they don’t any to worry about it.
Having the cake and eating it.
If you’ve followed meal plans, diet groups or long term use of fitness apps, offloading your hunger and fullness to calorie counts, macros and calories - eating intuitively is a real skill to practice again…
I ask all clients to fill out a small diary so I can get an inside hat into what they’re doing and make sure we can plug nutritional gaps with some meal or food recommendations for nutrients.
BUT
It’s a bit like going to the dentist, all of a sudden, just because they’re ‘thinking’ of the food they’re eating and don’t want to be judged they start to panic and make changes, finally flossing, mouth washing and brushing before you go.
They’re not stupid…
… and neither am I.
I’m not here for guilt, we just need all of the information.
Queue me putting their diet into my nutrition software and crikey!!???
You’re eating 1200 calories and not losing weight? ☹️
Usually a coach and a client then sit scratching their heads in disbelief and some ‘macro only prep coach’ makes a decision to increase your cardio and take out your carbs.
It’s shit and they hate it
Immediately they want off
How long can that actually go on for?
They don’t wanna give up my Friday nights and now
They get an initial result and then BANG they’re off - HARD snorting tequila off a bald mans head in Weatherspoons.
Because they’ve started thinking about it, they’ve automatically:
Cleaned up their diet instead of just eating normally.
Reduced their energy intake to something short term in hope of positive feedback from ‘coach’.
Shot all bullets day 1 and now the barrel is empty for when they stop seeing results.
But their day to day diet is just not like this…
They eat cereal, toast, sandwiches, crisps, take out 2-3 times a week and a jacket potato with chilli when they’re ‘trying’ to be good.
A basic start is to just look at the diet you already do and start some meal transformation.
You eat the food you want, it’s tasty not bland, it’s easy not hard and it doesn’t need catastrophised all-in-all-out perfectionism to get a result.
Let's just look at an example for Meal 1
a cup of tea and a bowl of crunchy nut with milk.
This is what they actually eat everyday BUT wrote on the diet record that they now skip breakfast…
What’s actually better is just looking at making one small change.
Firstly, we start to measure those ingredients with tsp, tbsp, cups, hands or scales so you have repeatable amounts, not just a bowl of ‘some’ and theirs pools of milk some days, mounds of cereal the other. Splash of milk in tea or a gulp when you poured a bit too quickly.
This was a heaped cup of cereal and a glass of milk, 2 tbsp of milk, 1 tsp of sugar.
Then we make a balanced food improvement...
Secondly, starting to look at getting more macronutrient balance in those meals - cereal and milk is highly carb focused so you give your body a better balance of what it needs: Going to a supermarket and buying Isey Skyr Baked Apples (tasty source of protein) and having a 1/2 a cup with your cereal, you will want to reduce the cereal a little because you’ll feel and stay fuller quicker but also means you’re getting more tasty variety of food but also having a better balance to breakfast.
This is a cup of cereal, which needed 1/2 glass of milk, plus 2 tbsp of milk in the tea and 1 tsp of sugar but ADDED 1/2 cup of Skyr Baked Apples ... There’s more options than that too - and you can try any or all of these.
Cue things like “oh I never eat more in my life and I still lost weight”….”feel great” because you’re happier, you’re achieving, you don’t hate it!?
Of course someone will read this and go “that’s not enough, not good enough”
... but that’s the kind of person who is sat there also reading this because they know their current methods are failing them and that style of thinking is why.
Not everyone wants to eat eggs for breakfast.
Some people just want to feel better and not be thinking about it.
They don’t want unsustainable shit…
Yes nutrient density and more development of this over time has its place but long term not day 1.
It’s no good to you just to be told or know that. You have to be able to take action and know the right solution.
YOUR solution.
In all of your other meals, how can you improve the balance of them?
Make healthy swaps and balance the macro nutrients.
Not sure?
Find out more here:
Learn more about nutrition and food balance: https://bit.ly/3Kdxoxy
Eating out guides and recipe books --> https://bit.ly/3KyDusN
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Grab a Gousto --> cook.gousto.co.uk/raf/?promo_code=ROBER42939097
Free recipe cards --> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b872c0j43qe3bte/AACbxw23BcsUC5xtLNpuG6RZa?dl=0