It’s time to stop thinking in terms of what not to eat. There are a few amazing things that happen when you start focusing instead on what you DO want to eat. If you focus on fitting in all the nutrient rich foods you would like to be eating, you will have little room left for junk. Cravings are largely due to your body not receiving the nutrients it needs. Getting the right nutrients in makes your body happy and you will find it stops asking you for the things your mind is saying no too.
A couple other great side effects of focusing on the “good” rather than the “bad” are that you feel less stressed, and you like yourself better. You are less stressed since you are not constantly in a battle with yourself, smacking your own hand and saying “don’t touch that cupcake!”, now you are allowed to have that cupcake, as long as it is not substituted as dinner! Remember what mom use to say, “don’t spoil your appetite, eat your dinner, and then you can have a treat”. As I mentioned, you will eat far less of that treat, or maybe won’t even crave it after your nutrient dense and therefore filling meal. The second part I mentioned is you will like yourself better. Why is that? Creating a list of don’t do’s is bound to end in failure. What follows is that little voice in your head saying, “I wasn’t supposed to eat any chocolate today, but I had piece so I decided I might as well eat the whole box and start again tomorrow”.
Aside from the psychological benefits of this new thinking, the reduced stress of this plan leads to major physiological benefits as well. Stress is one of the number one reasons people have trouble losing or maintaining a healthy weight; Higher cortisol levels (the stress hormone) = more weight. Beyond this, stress is a major cause of illness: lowered immune system function, cardiovascular and brain disease. The other major reason people have trouble losing/maintaining weight, develop cardiovascular disease and so on is NOT because they eat too many calories, but because they do not eat ENOUGH of the RIGHT calories!! Coming full circle here, focus on what you want to be eating, not on what you should not eat.
Taking that one step further, please do NOT calorie count! Think instead in terms of what kind of calories your body needs, quality over quantity. Calorie counting may work short term, but it will not lead to long term weight loss, your body will crave because you are neglecting to give it the right nutrients. Nutritious food is dense with USEABLE energy, eating large amounts of nutritious food will not lead to weight gain- your body can use those nutrients. This is somewhat hard to wrap your head around at first, but eating 1000 calories of nutrient dense food will not cause you to gain weight like eating 1000 calories of cake- it is not the same thing! Nutrient rich food will help encourage healthy metabolism, and discourage unneeded weight gain, and other health problems.
Okay so I have left you with the idea of thinking more in terms of what to eat. BUT WHAT DO YOU EAT!! There is so much information out there, so many diets that claim to help. The answer is in my next blog, and it is in fact not a diet at all! YAY, no more diets! Time to free yourself to the secret of what it means to eat good whole foods!!