Diet vs. Lifestyle Change

Once upon a time, when I was in high school, I wanted so desperately to be that thin girl that fit into size 0-1 jeans.  I envied the girls that were stick thin and could pretty much wear whatever they wanted.  You see, high school was some of my most awkward years, and although i was never "fat" per say, I was definitely carrying a lot more body fat with less muscle mass.  

That being said, I tried a ton of different diets.  Did you know that there are literally hundreds of different diets? No carb, low fat, under 1000 calories, cabbage diet, diuretics, Paleo, Slimfast…the list goes on.  And how long did I stay on each diet? Not very long.  I fell off the diet train time and time again.  I was depriving my body of nutrients it needed.  I would say to myself "I had a sandwich for lunch today…too much bread, I can't eat anything else for the rest of the day."  Thats not very healthy at all.  We hear so often that when we don't eat, our body goes into starvation mode.  Our bodies don't know we are on a diet, so it slows down metabolic function, brain function, and more.  

Diets are not sustainable for any long period of time.  If you have been able to sustain a diet for years…my hat goes off to you.  But that leads me to 'Lifestyle change'.  Perhaps slowing down your carb intake and cutting out sugars has worked for you and you lead your life making healthy decisions.  That is more of a lifestyle change.  It's funny, looking back to a year ago, I was a distance runner, trying to keep up with a paleo diet.  My  desired results hadn't been realized .   Then I started lifting heavy.  I was eating nothing before training, a cup of coffee after training, a salad for lunch, and veggies and a protein for dinner.  I was expelling too much energy for the amount of food I was eating.  What happened?  Same thing, I was working so hard at the gym, yet saw minimal, if any, results.

I was fed up that I was putting in so much work and seeing no results.  So I started to do what Robert had told me to do all along, I started food prepping and eating 5-6 smaller meals a day.  I gave my body the veggies, protein, fruit, and carbs it needed and the results I've seen have been far beyond anything I could imagine. I stopped looking at it as dieting, and started making healthy choices to keep my body's energy balanced.  

Real quick, this cracks me up so much I had to share it…this woman comes into my work sometimes.  She orders a side of meatballs, looks at me and says "I'm on a diet…this is my first meal."  NOOOOO!!!! Its 6pm.  I shake my head.  It drives me crazy. I would be crazy if that's all I had to eat all day.  My desire is to help people, like this woman, figure out the importance of when and what you eat.  It's just as important ingesting proper nutrients and calories upon waking, and spreading meals throughout the day. Eat more nutrient dense food, with proper exercise, lose more fat, be happier.  It worked for me, there is no reason why it can't work for you.  The end.