I bet 90% of females are nodding their heads right now.
I know I had up until a few years ago, then I studied Nutrition and really understood how it actually works.
Don’t get me wrong, I will always need to work on my relationship with food and it’s not easy all the time. You see I tend to over indulge; I have definitely had binging issues in the past, I don’t have one of those fast metabolisms and if it was just down to genetics, I would be overweight. I still dip in and out of weight loss phases too. However, the difference is now that I feel in control of it. I’m not on that hamster wheel of massive restriction on the weekends only to fall in the fuck it bucket each weekend. This is a huge achievement for me and it can be for anyone.
How did I get there?
Learning about energy balance was the first step. We all have heard that calories in calories out is how we lose weight. Yes, a negative energy balance is the principle to weight loss. We then have to find a method to create that energy balance. That method with be your diet, this is the more difficult part.
Did you know that the fat we hold on our body is actually excess energy AKA excess calories? When I learnt that it blew my mind. So, it makes sense that if we eat less calories (energy) than we burn that we will lose that energy AKA fat.
Another fact for you – did you know that when we lose fat, we breath it out!! WTF, again blew my mind. Most of it is breathed out as carbon dioxide.
Anyway, I went off subject.
It wasn’t as easy as just learning about energy balance, there is a lot more to it.
However, learning about your energy balance is a bloody good start.
I stress the YOUR part.
Yours is different to Sally in IG who says she eats 3000 calories a day and has shredded abs
Yours is different to Claire from marketing who is a marathon runner
Yours is different to your husbands
Yours is yours.
Why?
So many reasons.
How active you are? How much your currently weigh and how tall are you? Do you work out? Your dieting history Any hormonal or medical issues
The list is long.
Once you establish your number. You need to work out your method AKA diet.
Also – individual to you!
Jo at work may have lost 40kg intermittent fasting but you can’t go more than 3 hours without food so that’s not going to work for you. It will fail and then you will feel crap and the cycle starts again.
You need help and guidance with this.
Something else we need to be aware of that pops up now and again and ruins everything. LIFE! Shit happens!
I mentioned earlier that I dip in and out of fat loss phases. Our lives are not linear; they don’t run swimmingly all the time. Lockdowns, surgery, job changes, house moves, relationship breakdowns, work stress. They can derail our plans for our health goals very easily.
This is the great thing about the knowledge of your energy balance. You can make changes according to what is happening in your life. The goal should always be maintenance but sometimes you go into a surplus and gain a little fat. If you don’t want that fat gain, we can then pop into a fat loss phase.
Health is not easy as it requires effort but if you do the things that you actually like it becomes easier and less effort. You start to genuinely enjoy the process of being a healthier person.
Having a consultation with a Nutritionist will identify what will work for you. What YOUR method is. They will encourage you to do the things you enjoy to the process is not a slog and that includes eating foods you love.
If it is something you have been thinking about, I encourage you to take that plunge, you won’t ever regret investing in your health.