How to Make Healthy Eating a Lifestyle

Untapped Potential

As I work with clients I realize that they are a big inspiration for me. It’s not just me that is helping them, they are helping me too. There’s one particular client who I’m helping lose weight through dietary intervention and a fitness plan who is showing me that this field is truly fulfilling.

I’ve worked with people who say they want to lose weight but when it’s time for action they don’t follow through. They can’t let go of their unhealthy food staples – chips, drenching olive oil on salads, bread and butter – it’s usually a calorie-dense but nutrient-poor food or combination of foods. That’s what we hear at family gatherings too, how many people do you know who want to lose weight but “can’t imagine themselves not eating cheese?”

As I grew up I got used to that idea so I expect clients to only follow a plan 30% of the way. But this man is committing to it 100%. I talk to him daily and I am so grateful for being part of his journey. We decided to make a dietary camp lifestyle intervention meaning he eats only what’s in the plan.

No excuses. Full discipline. One day at a time.

Watching it drink

This post is to show gratitude for working with disciplined and committed people. People who decide to change and throw all excuses out the window. People who commit to building a new self, go on a mission and burn the boats to go back home so that their only option is to win. “You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” but there is no better feeling than watching it drink. To all the people who have committed to changing the way they currently are in search of a better version of themselves – you are the real deal, you will win.

The main reason people don’t achieve their goals is a lack of discipline and strategy. This is complex and it’s not that simple, but it boils down to those two things. You win because you set a goal and write it down. Then you plan how you will get it and how you will lead your life to open space for what needs to be done. Then you must find the discipline to show up every day.

Do restrictive starvation-driven diets work?

Your nutritionist shouldn’t be advising you to drink a protein shake for breakfast, an apple for lunch and soup for dinner. That won’t cut it.
The person is unlikely to follow the plan and if they do they will most likely gain that weight back because they’ll go back to the unhealthy diet they were used to. They haven’t learned anything or made lifestyle changes. They just followed a highly restrictive starvation plan for a limited period of time. However, the fact they followed the plan shows they are extremely dedicated and disciplined, which means they would’ve also succeeded in a strategically planned dietary intervention based on whole foods.

The motivated individual will blame themselves for not achieving the results they wanted when in reality the professional is the one at fault. That is devastating.

The world is full of people who’ve tried extremely restrictive, starvation-driven diet plans. Can you imagine what those people could’ve accomplished if only they had proper, strategically planned, dietary advice?

It’s a waste of potential, it builds confusion and self-doubt and it is a money-making machine for the people who give this advice as the person will have to come back every 6 months after they’ve gained all the weight back.

What can you do to succeed?

Well first of all you need to be highly selective of who you decide to work with. Not everyone has your best interest in mind. Some people really just want to make money off of you and want you to come back frequently to be a cash cow for them. So, here are a few tips on how you can make a shift towards a healthier diet more independently:

1. Use platforms like MyFitnessPal and Cronometer to make food reports of what you eat throughout the day – you must know how many calories you are eating per day.
2. Use an online calculator to figure out what your BMR is, and adjust your caloric intake depending on your physical activity levels.

That will help you know how many calories your body needs per day – i.e 2700 – and your food report will tell you how many you are currently eating. If your goal is to lose weight your caloric intake must be below your BMR, for example 2400. If you want to gain weight, your caloric intake must be higher than the BMR, for example, 3000.

Those are the baseline steps that will give you a nice overview of your diet and put you in the right direction. Then comes the trickier part – you must eat a balance of the right foods, the classic healthy and varied diet. Even though this can seem very confusing for a lot of people, it is not impossible to do it on your own.

A healthy diet will be composed of mostly plants, ideally, your plate should be 100% plants on most days, and you can have your favourite animal products sparingly, like once a week, once every two weeks, once a month, once a year, or become plant-based for good.

Balancing Your Plate

Ideally, your plate should always have a minimum of 4 vegetables in it. That is easy if you add onion and garlic to every meal and then 2 vegetables like broccoli and peppers. Not so hard right? Then you’d want a protein source, ideally a legume or pulse, like beans, or tofu. The carbohydrate would be something like rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa, or whole wheat pasta.

For foods outside of meals, you’d want to make sure you are eating at least 3 pieces of fruit per day, which could all be in a single smoothie, like bananas, apples and kiwis. If you want to take it up a notch and really boost your immune system, you can add berries to your smoothie, berries are super rich in antioxidants and other micronutrients that play a huge role in disease prevention and ageing. Another crucial food group you must make sure you eat every day is nuts and seeds, those two foods are crucial when it comes to disease prevention.

Summary

If your diet contains all the foods mentioned above you are doing better than 90% of people and you are taking good care of your health and body. If you aren’t eating all of those foods yet, I’d advise you to start adding them slowly to your diet. You could easily add 50g of beans to your meals, you can easily add 1 piece of fruit per day, and you can easily eat 15g of nuts throughout the day.

It’s about making the decision to commit to a new lifestyle. You really have to understand that your health is at stake and that you could be doing better. It is within your control to make changes. It is within your control to choose what you put in your body on a daily basis. You can decide not to drink more Coca-Cola. You can decide to not buy Cheetos. Those are commitments you make to yourself.

I truly believe we humans can achieve anything we want to if we put our minds to it. I’ve never seen a person go to the gym 5 times per week, eat well, sleep healthy food and not be in shape. It doesn’t happen.

If you want to read a blog post about how learning about nutrition changed my life click here.

Hope you have a great week!

Best wishes,

Martim