So you want to change your body. You want to lose some body fat, gain some muscle and strength, perform better, look good.
You think to yourself, “I just need someone to tell me what to eat, so I don’t have to think about it.” So you reach out to a nutritionist or a dietician and you ask them for a diet chart. They ask you a few basic follow up questions so they can make a good recommendation for you.
Then they send you a document that has everything written out for you. You got around 10 different meal options, lists of options for snacks and pre and post workout nutrition. Looks awesome! You decide you are going to follow this chart EXACTLY. And you do…for about a week.
You start having these narratives come into your mind.
“Oh, I don’t know how to cook that. I’m not a good cook.”
“I miss this food so much (fill in the blank for your craving)! I’ll have it just this once. It’s not big deal.”
“Today is my cheat day😅. This might be my favorite day of the week.”
“This diet chart is really difficult to follow when I travel, when I’m in a hurry, or when I want to meet with friends and family.”
“Healthy food tastes boring. I can’t do this anymore. It has no flavor!”
You are not alone in these thoughts. You are falling into what is called a “scarcity brain”.
What is scarcity brain?
Scarcity brain is a feedback loop within your mind that tells you that important things (or things that WANT you to think they are important) are in short supply. So you need to stock up on them every chance you get. It causes your brain to search for anything that gets it a little dopamine, a hormone that makes you feel good and tells you something is rewarding.
Dopamine can be produced with all sorts of things. Unhealthy things that give you a little dopamine hit are things like sugar, sweets, your colorful smart phone, alcohol, pornography, junk food, video games, gambling, and other self destructive behaviors. But healthy behaviors also produce dopamine. Things like exercise, learning a new skill, quality time and laughter with loved ones also have a powerful dopamine kick to your brain.
When in the scarcity loop, you will turn to your go-to behaviors you are most habitually doing to cope with stress and scarcity. Whether those behaviors are good for you or not, your brain turns to those without even thinking, so that you can escape the scarcity.
This is why diet charts are dead.
They awaken the worst in us. We can muster up the self discipline for a while but we are not machines. We are human beings who desire connection, variety, and freedom. When those get interrupted by a diet, we start having tons of negative thoughts toward healthy food that may be a complete lie, but we just want to break free! So we end up binging on junk food, going off the chart more than we follow it, and we decide that it is just not for us unless we have a bigger health problem. We tell ourselves we are not that overweight or nutrition doesn’t hold us back that much in our performance. But in reality we know the truth.
What is a better way forward?
We need to learn principles and apply them over time with growing consistency. Here’s some I focus on in coaching.
Healthy food can taste AWESOME with some practice and a willingness to keep working at it.
How much you eat is more important than what you eat. Your food choices can improve over time.
A normal fit person consistently chooses the whole food option that is better for his or her health 80-90% of the time. The other 10-20% of food choices may not be the best, but it helps them enjoy some less healthy options here and there without derailing their health and performance goals.
There are TONS of food choices and combinations that can be good for health and performance. The only limit is your own creativity.
Food from every culture can be prepared in a healthy manner and taste great.
It’s not all or nothing. You will have some weeks that are better than others nutritionally, but if the “average” of what you eat over time is whole, minimally processed food that meets your macronutrient needs (calories from protein, carbs, and fat), then you will turn out pretty great over time.
It’s not a short term diet change for quick results. That leads to falling off and returning back to unhealthy habits that brought you to the need for a change in the first place. It’s a permanent sustainable lifestyle change you chose to make for your health and performance.
Diet charts can’t deliver these principles. They aren’t meant to. They are meant to be a starting point where you learn and improve over time. The problem is they don’t commmunicate that from the start.
These principles above are learned and practiced over time. Some need the help of a nutrition coach or trainer to help them see what they can’t see and hold them accountable to choose better behaviors and food choices more consistently over time. That’s what we do at LinnFit. It takes more effort from the coach, but it helps people change for a lifetime with a better relationship with food.
Diet charts are dead. Choosing to live life by principle and with the end target in mind is what takes us on the path forward to being the best version of ourselves.
No short cuts. Just steps forward. How do you want to learn more about some of the principles I mentioned and apply those today?
Comentarios