I talk a lot about nutrition and about breaking the diet mentality that can hold us prison without a get out jail free card – if we let it. I am a believer and an anti-diet nutrition coach that believes moderation and flexible eating is the way to food freedom.
I have seen it work for many individuals. The freedom that comes from taking a flexible approach allows for all foods to be part of healthy lifestyle. Flexible eating can also help you lose the fat and maintain that fat loss for a lifetime, not a season.
Not only does it bring food freedom, but it can also heal or help you have a better relationship with food. How? Because,
with flexible eating there are no banned foods, you get to eat the foods that you love, while working towards body change or just eating for life.
Flexible eating broke down the fears I had around fruit, dairy, and bread. No foods are inherently bad for you, unless of course you have an allergy. With some investigating on my part, putting away the meal plans, and not following any diets; I was able
to lose fat, and maintain my physique by including all foods.
Looking back on it, once I quit the diets, I was eating flexible before it was a thing – at the time, of course, it wasn’t called flexible eating. Before my physique competition days, when I first wanted to lose some fat, I simply ate better. I didn’t ban any foods; I just ate moderately. Instead of eating fast food several times a week,
I cut back to twice a week. I made sure to incorporate more veggies, and one of things that we women skimp out on is protein. Protein became my new friend. Question? If you had to say, how much protein are you consuming, are you having it with every meal?
Protein, is your friendly fat loss friend!
It builds and repairs your muscle. Not only that, protein is going to keep you feeling fuller longer. Outside of fats, protein usually ranks highest on the satiation scale.
Get back to the simple basics of nutrition:
- Take a moderate/flexible approach to your nutrition – cut
portion sizes down.
- Protein at every meal – Peanut butter is not a protein; it is classified as a fat.
- Veggies and fruit on the regular. Eat the rainbow, literally.
- Carbohydrate intake can be adjusted according to activity level. So for example – on training days, center your carbs around your training and non-training days have less
carbs.
Lastly, two habits that I want you to work on every time you sit down to a meal. It doesn’t require any counting or weighing of your macros, unless of course you still want to, and that’s fine.
- Eat mindfully and slow
down- this is part of my #AMEN nutrition protocol for all my clients. I know we can’t slow down all the time or be present because that’s just life, but practice it when you can. Sometimes we are actually full before we finish the food on our plates.
- Eat to about 80% full - awareness and paying attention to satiety. Eating it 80% is a built in calorie control mechanism that we fail to use. Once we master this, it’s
golden.
Now mind you, these habits won’t happen overnight. It will take practice and you will mess up a hundred times over. The important thing is you keep at it.
I will leave you with this - you don’t have to be rigid in your approach to nutrition. Rigidity is simply not sustainable or healthful to your mindset. Please take a moderate approach to
fitness and nutrition and watch your results flourish. The better you like how you eat and like how you move, the longer you can do it, and the more enjoyable it will be.
Xo
Yours in Health and Wellness,
Candace
P.S. Hit reply, if you have a moment and let me know what is working for you on the nutrition front. Or if you have any questions pertaining to nutrition or fat loss.
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