What is the first thing you think of when I say the word diet? I’ll give you a minute to think...still thinking? Does this word evoke a lot of emotions?
If you have tried multiple diets with short term success and the first thing you think of is yo-yo, you’re not alone. The word diet means something different to everyone but after asking 100’s of people what it means to them, it’s never positive. People use the word restriction? Hunger? Suffering? and the most common phrase I hear is “I will never be able to eat anything that tastes good like dessert again.”
One of the first concepts we like to deconstruct at Nutrition1st is the word diet. Language matters so we simply don’t use the word diet. We only talk about your nutrition plan! It’s how you organize your nutrition around your schedule, your goals, and your lifestyle. It never means you can’t eat certain foods again and it certainly never means suffering. It means education, awareness of certain behaviors, planning and preparing food, and ultimately a nutrition plan that gives you freedom inside your newly organized disciplined lifestyle.
When you work with us you get to enjoy all the foods you love but when you are trying to lose weight, it’s in smaller quantities and with less frequency. Instead of a full bowl of ice cream with cake at a birthday party, it’s one scoop with a small piece of cake. A tasty piece of high quality chocolate and a glass of wine can fit into your nutrition plan because of how it has been structured throughout the day and throughout the week. I think the biggest reason people have a negative association with the word diet in their life is because it means you have to take a hard look at your actions, behaviors, and ultimately your habits on a daily basis to see how you got to this point. Then they have come to the realization of the changes that are necessary in order to achieve their goals. This is a hard place to be because we are admitting to ourselves our choices are not healthy ones and we have let other aspects of our life take priority over the most important thing in our life...our health!
This is the ultimate challenge in your life. You are aware of the negative behaviors that are actually killing you and It’s time to make a different decision, it’s a time to make a change.
At Nutrition1st we address why the word diet has a negative connotation to you. This is where we start to focus on your mindset to help you see that your thoughts become your words, and your words become your actions which ultimately defines who you are. That is why we feel the coaching process is not simply prescribing someone certain calories and macronutrients or even educating them about food quality, quantity, and nutrient timing but that true coaching takes into account the entire psychological relationship of food as it pertains to relationships, self-esteem and emotional balance in people’s lives.
I like to pose this question to people when they feel like sticking to their nutritional plan is too challenging, “what would the person you want to become do right now?” Would they have a second piece of cake or would they drink a big glass of water to help with that feeling of satiety instead? Stopping to think about these little things at challenging points in our life, starts to slowly change our mindset of who we are and our relationship to food; to the mindset of who we want to become and the relationship we want to have with food. As we start to see these behaviors shaping us into the person we want to become, the behaviors reinforce themselves and ultimately we are that person.
We know this can be extremely challenging on various levels and without the objective guidance of a coach you may quickly give up on the whole process. It’s a big commitment to change your mindset about nutrition and ultimately make life long changes at any stage of your life. You can do it and we can help. Future you will thank you for it.
~Coach Brant