The dieting cycle vs a lifestyle
As a personal trainer & nutrition coach, my main goal is that you feel good throughout your journey. I am a lot less concerned with how fast fat loss is happening compared to how fast you think it should be. If fat loss is your goal, I will work to get you there but not at the expense of making you feel like crap. You need to be able to live & enjoy life because that is what will ensure you keep your results long term.
Hence why, I’m not a big fan of ‘diets’.
The list as to why is endless but here are just some of the reasons.
#1 They don’t teach sustainable habits
#2 They make you completely dependent on food & exercise rules, meal plans, etc
#3 They don’t distinguish from person to person, individual lifestyle, schedule or preferences
#4 They are usually about eliminating something - complete restriction & deprivation
#5 They have an end date/a timeline
#6 They focus almost entirely on scale numbers as progress
#7 They don’t teach us ‘how to’ when life gets hectic, when we can’t follow plan exactly as written
#8 They don’t teach us to rely on biofeedback and interpret it (if we don’t feel good something probably isn’t right)
#9 They don’t provide any work on mindset. Period!
A diet is a temporary thing, done for a temporary time which takes away from your life, is impossible to sustain & leads to fleeting results.
How many of you can relate to the infographic pictured?
Start diet plan
Tackle every single thing at once. (All or nothing!)
Feel completely deprived & restricted
Starving, uncontrollable cravings, exhaustion
Binge, go off plan, miss workouts
Ask yourself, “what is wrong with me, why can’t I stick with anything? I failed again.”
Give up, quit diet plan
But, I need to lose weight
Start the same cycle over again
As a previous yo-yo dieter, I know the struggle. I know the want to believe that there must be a quick-fix or magic secret. In fact, the cycle pictured, was exactly me before making a no nonsense decision to accept that there was none of these so called magic formulas. In 2010, I decided to put in the hard work, be consistent & make the lifestyle change required. You see, the biggest difference between a diet & a lifestyle is that a lifestyle adds to your life, can be sustained because it teaches behaviour change through healthier habits, makes you feel better and leads to results that last long term.
Now, I’m not a sugar-coater so I’ll tell you straight up that behaviour change is hard. It takes time & patience. It doesn’t result in overnight progress. But, I can also promise you that if real results are what you are after, then a change in mindset around food & exercise are required. If you put in the hard work, stay the course, stop looking at the scale # to deem you worthy, then it’ll all eventually become just another part of who you are.
The idea behind a lifestyle is to stop the cycle above and find a way of eating & working out that actually make you feel your best so you just want to do it forever. My coaching teaches women that if feeling your best is #1 you’re far more likely to succeed over just working for numbers at the expense of how you feel. The progress will come but never at the expense of your health (mind, body & soul).
And, doesn’t that sound much better than torturing yourself over and over and over!?!
Until next time,
