Happy New Year! Now is the time of year when everyone is joining gyms, starting new weight-loss programs, feeling the pressure to slim down, “tone up”, and restrict portions and calories. Many people feel like they need to make amends for their dietary “transgressions” over the holidays, a thought which is encouraged by the media and many diet companies. As a nutrition coach, and a woman who has tried all of these things in the past, this frustrates me!
We should not feel shamed into exercise, or making nutritional changes. Many companies ask questions like “Did you overindulge over the holidays?” This type of question fuels the guilt that many people associate with food. This is NOT a healthy approach to eating and nutrition. I say eat foods that you enjoy, and try to truly savor them. This doesn’t mean that you need to eat ten cookies in one sitting, but if it happens do not feel like you have to exercise yourself into oblivion to “work off” the cookies, or cut calories for the rest of the day. As the song goes, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again!”
This whole mentality of equating the food you eat to the amount of exercise you need to do in order to “burn it off” is just ridiculous! It promotes obsessive behaviors towards food and can lead to disordered eating. Yet I see this type of thing in magazines and on social media all the time. When you believe that the only way to stay in control of your nutrition is by constantly counting calories, portioning out and weighing food, and equating calorie consumption to how long and hard you need to exercise, you are not truly living.
I am sorry if this offends you. Perhaps you are a long time calorie counter. I was there too. However, please believe me when I say that this is not a long-term solution. Nor is it health promoting. And that is what our true goal should be, right? Health.
My one caveat to eating foods that you enjoy, is that they should also make you feel good by adding to your health. If every time you eat pizza, your skin breaks out, then maybe your body is telling you that this is not a food that is adding to your health.
Why do we pay the diet and fitness industry hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars to tell us that we need to restrict calories and fats? Is that advice working? This approach may lead to weight loss, but not true health. If calorie and fat restriction was truly the key, then we would be seeing a much healthier population in our country today. Counting calories does not resolve the underlying issues that are causing the problem. Stress, lack of sleep, hormonal imbalances, not taking enough time for ourselves, toxic overload, lack of movement and Vitamin D – the kind that comes from sunshine – and nutritional deficiencies, all work together to create the perfect storm that leads to illness and obesity in our society.
What if I told you that most conventional “wisdom” regarding nutrition is based upon faulty and incorrect research? What if I told you that fat is not the enemy, but is vital to our health? What if I told you that our society is being made sick by the sugar and chemically-laden processed foods and drinks that we eat and feed our children on a daily basis? Additives and chemicals that are designed to be hyperpalatable, overriding our body’s natural satiety cues, and manipulating our taste buds so that we want more. Our addiction to these foods lines the pockets of big businesses, such as Kraft Foods Inc., Coca Cola Co., and the like. However, these foods continue to make us sicker and sicker.
Over the years we have found many scapegoats to take the place of the real reason that many of us are not enjoying true health. Fat, calories, and not enough exercise, are among some of the reasons that are often pointed out. Most diet companies and followers of convention make the assertion that we need to restrict food in some way, and do more exercise.
Yet, the solution is much more simple than what we’ve been led to believe. We need to stop the restriction and punishment cycle and begin to nourish ourselves, nutritionally and emotionally. 
We need to look at the foods we are buying and determine if they are adding to our health or full of ingredients that have a negative impact on our health.
We need to examine the quality of our food. Where do our meats and eggs come from? Large factory farms, where the animals are kept in inhumane conditions and pumped full of antibiotics? Or from a smaller sustainable farm, where they are treated well and fed the foods that they were biologically intended to eat, instead of genetically modified corn.
We need to take more responsibility for what we eat, and for educating ourselves about our food system. The information is out there, but it is up to you to find it.
If you are interested in making permanent changes to your health and reprogramming your beliefs about food, I encourage you to join one of my coaching programs. We will work together to break away from the nutritional status quo, so that you can achieve true health and never diet again.
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