Consistency. Not perfection.
Being consistently good, but knowing that it's okay not to be perfect is one of the most amazing things you can do for you mind and body. It's okay to not be able to make all the changes to your diet that you want at the same time, don't feel guilty about it. After all no body is perfect so don't expect the impossible of yourself - you'll eventually damage your confidence.
Good habits take time.
Make changes gradually and go easy on yourself, it will make you more likely to be consistent.
I am a big believer in listening to your body and eating what you want when you feel the need to (I am saying this while eat a bowl of homemade mac and cheese because I just feel like I need it..). Having this sort of freedom when it comes to food eventually steers you away from unhealthy foods and towards healthy ones. Why? Psychology. What's forbidden is desired and if I tell my clients that they are not allowed to eat so and so and reprimand them every-time they confess that they have gone off track I am reinforcing their unhealthy habits. If a client tells me that they had a burger over the weekend (not everyday of the week) I'll most likely ask "was it good? where did you get it from? so you'd recommend I go try it" rather than tell her of for it.
Love your body and love food and soon you'll only want to eat what's good for it.
One of two things can happen when you are consistently good and have something unhealthy:
1. You feel bloated and uncomfortable when you eat something greasy, sugary and processed as your taste buds and your body are now used to all the goodness you feed them.
2. You realise that having a slip-off every once in a while doesn't affect you and your body can cope with it. You feel fine after it and the next day and it doesn't show up on the scale.
The reason people fail at diets so often is that most of them are restrictive for a very long time (too long) and leave you hungry even though they require you to buy a lot of expensive ingredients. The problem with this is that you can't commit to never having a piece of cake or slice of pizza again because - if like at my office - it will be someone's birthday that week and you celebrate the end of the week with a big cake from The Cheesecake Factory for breakfast, or one of your girlfriends will be going through a hard time and needs some girls time and ice cream and you'll have some with her. These are real life situations that are actually quite essential to building relationships, so can you promise yourself to let your friend have the ice-cream by herself or that you'll never want a slice of cake for breakfast at work? No and you shouldn't.
I also hate the word diet because I don't like my clients to think of themselves as being on a diet. Whenever someone asks me can you write me a diet I say
"Sure I can, however I would rather educate about how to make healthier choices on a day to day basis through small changes that will last you a lifetime than give a timetable of boring foods to eat and follow to the T for the res of your life - which you probably won't"
Work out what will and won't work for you and stick to it. You'll be happier and healthier!
P.S: I am not sure if any of you have come across Emily Rosen but if you haven't check out this video about how if you remove pleasure from eating then the nutritional value of the food plummets.
Happy Healthy Living,
The Gymcess x
