Deep down inside you know that if you are ever to lose fat, flatten your tummy, get lean legs, or toned arms, you will have to eat healthy. After various attempts at losing weight by exercising with no fat loss or body shaping results to show for your efforts, you've finally succumb to the idea that in order to get the fat loss results you want, you will have to change your eating habits. But how can you lose fat when you find eating healthy nearly impossible?
First ask yourself... why is eating healthy so hard? I asked this question to a group of women interested in fat loss and got many different answers but one jumped out at me because it was the first time I heard this answer. One woman told me very simply. "It's hard to eat healthy because I don't associate "good food" with healthy food. When I want something "good to eat", I think of fried chicken, mac and cheese, or pizza." So how exactly do you lose fat if you are a woman who doesn't associate "good food" with the healthy kind?
Here was my response:
For the healthy DOES NOT = good food dlimena, there are a few approaches we can take. I'll outline all of them and you can use some of all of these techniques.
#1 - Change your preferences by changing your habits. Our preferences are formed from habit. The reason we perceive cheeseburges, pizza, mac and cheese,etc as GOOD FOOD is because we were repeatedly exposed to those foods and for some of us those foods were used as treats or to celebrate special occassions. Just think about it, Friday night pizza with the family to celebrate the end of the week. Mac and cheese as a part of Sunday dinner, etc. In order to change our preferences, we can change our habits. Routinely abstaining from GOOD FOOD that we know isn't good for us and "indulging" in healthy foods that support fat loss and energy over a period of time (sometimes as little as 3 weeks), can be a step toward changing our preferences. Here's something that I've tried. Abstain from GOOD FOOD for 3-4 weeks. After that time, give in to one of my cravings. I was surprised that my memory of how good that food was and tasted did not match my experience with the food when I reintroduced it. For example, the first time I ate fried food after abstaining for a long time, I was very disappointed. I could literally feel the grease gather in mouth and coat the inside of my lips. Needless to say it wasn't hard to abstain from that food and not "feel deprived" after that experience because my memory of what it would taste and feel like was different than before. This has also worked with me for fruit juice (I can only tolerate it diluted now). This isn't to say I didn't try it again from time to time but each time has been disappointing and it hasn't gotten very easy to pass on food that used to be my idea of a treat. Now when I think of good food for a treat, I think sushi made with brown rice or some healthier version of my former comfort foods. That brings me to the next point . This may be a tough approach to try as a first go at learning to eat healthy but some people do really well with the cold turkey approach to eating healthy for fat loss.
#2- Find healthier versions of traditional "good food".This approach works for many people beause they don't have to ban their favorite food or reserve to eat it infrequently. This is kind of the "have your cake and eat it too" approach. However some people want what they want and would rather not deal with substitutes. One of my favorite things to do is recreate a former comfort food to a dish that still tastes great but is way better for me than the original version. This one takes some practice but I've practiced now for about 10 years so I can usually help you recreate a dish fairly quickly. Some of my favorite "transformed dishes" are fat-free, reduced sugar sweet potato pie, reduced fat whole grain lasagna, spicy "fried" chicken, reduced fat, whole grain mac and cheese, ok you get the point. My list is very long BUT the point is that you don't have to ban food you like from your meal plan but there are ways to make it healthier so that you can enjoy the food AND the body you live in at the same time without having to choose one or the other. Some easy tips to convert recipes:
multi-grain or whole wheat pasta instead of white
reduced fat cheese instead of whole fat (same with milk)
apple sauce instead of oil in baked goods
There are more but this helps to start.
#3 Save your favorite foods for "planned indulgences" that occur 1-2 times per week.Eat your full fat, full sugar versions of your favorite foods but limit frequency and portion size. This one works for some personalities but not for all. I will be the first to admit that many people struggle to do this successfully because we are such creatures of habit. Many times just when you have started to establish the habit of eating healthy after 4-6 days, it's time for a planned indulgence (which most people will schedule for the weekend). After having the planned indulgence, it's hard to stop at one reasonable serving only 1-2 times per week because you are awakening a habit (eating junk) that is only asleep but not dead. Many times, it may take several meals or even meals to get back on track and re-establish the healthy eating habit only to fall off the wagon again at the next "planned indulgence". This type of cycling is very destructive and can lead to discouragement and quitting very easily. In our minds, the 5-6 days of clean eating should produce fat loss results and then when we don't get the results we expect on the scale, the tape measure, or the clothes, we get discouraged. Our bodies are complex machines and often don't recover from a few weeks of abuse in a matter of days. Your body is waiting for a CONSISTENT set of instructions (like lose fat and burn the food I consume) in order to react and change. This type of cycling fails to provide the consistent direction to lose fat and many times, one will just go back to old habits and believe that eating right "didn't work". HOWEVER- some people do really well with this approach. They enjoy the treat and move on. In this group of people what usually happens is that over time, their preferences change and their idea of good food slowly shifts to what is healthy also
THE APPROACH I PREFER PERSONALLYI know this will come up so I'm fessing up now. When I first started changing the way I ate to produce the body I wanted, I favored approach #2. That's why I can quickly switch up unhealthy recipes. I had formed a strong habit of eating rich, spicy, and sweet food and wasn't ready or willing to go for the other approaches. After lusing approach #2 to lose 30 pounds to get to a weight I liked, I started wanting MORE? Sound familiar?
Ibegan to research and ask people who looked like I wanted to look (fitness modelesque) what and how they ate and I discovered that my diet was too high in starch and sugar and too low in protein for the look I wanted and to get any more progress, I'd need to change.
My next step was approach #3- with "planned indulgence". By the way, I survived on approach #2 for YEARS before changing so this may be a process and not happen overnight. To be honest, approach #3 was a struggle for a while. I quickly learned that my "cheat day" turned into a "cheat weekend or week" and I was stuck in a nasty, ugly cycle where I worked really hard in the gym, ate really clean all week, blew it on the weekend and STAYED THE SAME...ARGH! I wasn't willing to keep spinning my wheels and decided that a mix of approach #2 and #3 worked best for me. I ate clean all week and my "planned indulgences" were healthier versions of my former treat foods. This worked MUCH better and afforded me more fat loss and body shaping progress.
Finally, after success with creating a lean athletic look, I decided I wanted to try my hand at figure competitions (like bodybuilding but softer) and fitness modeling. In order to get in that type of superior shape, I needed to commit to approach #1- THAT'S RIGHT NO CHEATS! for a period of time (12-16 weeks) to prepare for competition and photo shoots. My body fat changed from 19-20% to 8% in a matter of 12 weeks while eating 6-7 times per day... talk about supercharged metabolism but there were NO CHEATS AT ALL! After going through that process, my preferences changed tremendously. After 12 weeks without greasy, fatty foods, and no sugar whatsoever, I'm able to successfully follow approach #3. So you see this process can go full circle and take years however, you can get lean, healthy, and energetic and enjoy good food!
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