How many cups of coffee have you had so far this morning? What did you eat for breakfast? Do you even eat breakfast?
These are just 3 of the many questions that I ask clients when creating a customized nutritional plan designed to help them achieve their health and fitness goals while still being suitable and manageable for their particular lifestyles.
To be honest, I could care less if you eat breakfast. And although I personally don’t consume it, I don’t think caffeine is that bad for us, unless ofcourse you have a heart condition and/or suffer from high blood pressure. However if you rely on caffeine just to be able to function throughout your day, and feel lethargic, irritable and grumpy unless you are able to get in your daily sugar fix, then I personally think your diet SUCKS. And the reason your diet SUCKS is because you haven’t learned your own body. And the reason you haven’t learned your own body is because you’ve let someone else tell you what to feed it and when to feed it. And the reason your diet doesn’t work is because it’s not been designed specifically for you.
So if you’re tired of feeling tired and sick of feeling sick, and upset with your recent weight gain or inability to lose body fat, then perhaps it’s time you sit down, revaluate your fitness goals and reassess your current nutritional plan. To do this successfully though, you’re going to need to review your current training program and revise your current lifestyle.
How to Do This?
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it until the day I retire – LOSING WEIGHT IS EASY!!!! Unless you have an inactive thyroid or suffer from hypotension, or have some other form of physical limitation that prevents you from losing weight, then there should be no reason as to why you cannot do it. In my opinion, the reason why most people fail to lose weight, or even worse, lose weight quickly and then add it all back on again is due to shitty dieting.
Stop Being a Shitty Dieter
Before you can run you need to know how to walk. And before you can lose fat and build muscle successfully you need to know how to diet smart. And to diet smart you have to be able to follow a nutritional plan that is sustainable for your lifestyle and your current activity level. Obviously a person who sits at a desk all day is going to require less calories then someone who is on their feet doing manual labour for the same period of time. And the same can be said for someone who is training at the gym 3-4x/week in comparison to an athlete who can be training 3-4 hours in the gym per day. The athlete is going to require a more substantial amount of calories.
Gender & Age
Unfortunately dieting can be both sexist and agist. Scientifically speaking, women tend to have a harder time losing weight then men and it’s not secret that the older we become, the harder it becomes to lose weight due to the fact that our metabolisms begin to slow down as we age. But so what? That doesn’t mean we should all just give up on our health and fitness goals. It just means that we need to be smarter with our approach and work harder for our results. But make no mistake, IT CAN BE DONE.
Stop Buying into Generic Garbage
After all these years, I still cannot believe as to how many people follow generic diet plans such as Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and/or The South Beach Diet, just to name a few. Famous diets such as the Atkins Diet have been proven to work in the short term, however they are impossible to follow and sustain in the long term. Therefore these diets DO NOT WORK which essentially means they are SHITTY DIETS!
Know Your Body & Understand Your Lifestyle
Without a doubt the two most important components to have when designing a safe and effective nutritional plan is to know your body and understand your lifestyle. The only way to do this ofcourse is through trial and error and paying close attention to how your body is responding and how you are feeling throughout each day. This will require patience and experience. And if you are not willing to have either, then you will continue to be a shitty dieter for life.
So what exactly should we be eating to go from becoming a shitty dieter to a smart dieter?
Check out Part 3 of my 3 Part Instalment Blog of “Dissecting Your Diet – Part 3″ next week, and I’ll tell you.
Yours in Good Health,
Nick Cosgrove
Forever Fit Performance