The Chief Complaint: I’m Confused About Which Food Plan to Follow
For years, I spent my time worrying about this: what should I be eating? What’s the best meal plan out there? Should I do low-carb? Should I do high-fat/low-carb? How about intermittent fasting? How about the Zone diet? Should I just use moderation? Maybe I should divide up my carbs at breakfast, protein at lunch, and fat for dinner? There’s just so much out there.
If you’re reading this thinking, “Yeah, this is me. I still don’t know what to eat, what food plan to follow,” then you’re in the right place.
I’ve seen so many smart, amazing men and women with so much to give to the world struggle with feelings of needing to stick to a diet because they want to reach a certain goal. And I, myself, have had an obsession with food and weight gain. From an early age, I was confused about food, my body, exercise, and my worth. I feel so privileged now to be able to share my experience and how I got through it.
One of the first things we need to do when we start the process of picking out a food plan is evaluating who you are as a unique individual. It’s not as simple as, “If you’re diabetic or pre-diabetic, you should be low-carb and if you’re fine, then anything goes.”
There are so many wonderful books about food plans out there that sound like they make sense. But the truth is that what is going to work for you isn’t necessarily going to be written in a book. That’s why it’s so important to know your body type and set realistic goals. When our goals are unrealistic and we’ll stop at nothing to get them, we put pressure on ourselves and end up living in a way that we don’t enjoy.
Going Slow
I once had a client who had a hemoglobin A1C close to 10. She’d been trying low-carb and fasting, but it wasn’t working for her, and she was desperate. So we looked for the one change we could make to take her in a positive direction. What we landed on was allowing her one serving of sugar, a small can of coke, every day. That’s what worked for her. Over the course of the year we worked together, she lost 35 pounds, got her hemoglobin A1C into the normal range, and was happier than ever. The idea is dialing in on the one thing that you can change to get you further to your goal - and maintain it.
Because if your eating plan isn’t going to balance with your goal, then it’s either not a good eating plan or not a good goal. Your food plan has to fit into your lifestyle.
The best way to do that is to make one change at a time. Wait. Be patient. You’ll arrive at the right food plan for you after you do this work.
Instead of diving in to make a million changes at once, start with one that will take you closer to your optimal health. Once you make that change and own it, don’t make another one until that change becomes a part of what you do.
This is very much a process. But the beauty is that when you go slowly, two things happen.
First, your plan becomes a forever plan. You learn how to live this way and it becomes a part of your lifestyle. You can stop trying to mold your life around your food. The whole idea is that your food plan should fit into your lifestyle; you should not be trying to fit your life into food.
Second, you’ll be able to practice that all-important body love. Because when you decide you want to weigh a certain number or wear a certain size, and you want to do it immediately, you’ll usually find the thing that will get you there the quickest, which is often a crash diet. But if you don’t have the time to work on loving your body right where it is right now, when you get to your new goal, you’re not just going to magically love your body. True body love with unconditional self-acceptance doesn’t happen through crash dieting.
To achieve these great things and make a forever food plan, you need to know:
Your body type
Your goals
That your goals are realistic
That you are committed to going all in
From there, you’re able to work slowly. In the grand scheme of things, if it takes you six months to make really good progress, that’s not so much time. Instead of thinking about how to get to your goal in a month or two weeks, think of it in the long term.
The right food plan to pick is the one that’s going to be absolutely customized to you. If you like eating low carb, have gotten good results and made huge health strides doing so - great. Maybe you’re a person for whom keto works. Maybe a balanced approach works for you. Maybe you’re more about fasting. The idea is to choose one thing and then go from there.
Intuitive Eating
Now, let’s talk about intuitive eating. It’s a term that gets thrown around a lot and we often don’t really know what it means. So think of what intuitive eating means for you. For me, it makes me think of my mom, who always taught me that my body knows what it wants.
Over time, we can learn what foods feel good in our body. When we do, our body starts to crave them. I love roasted veggies so much that I crave them now, which I never thought I would.
Intuitive eating is tapping into your body and first asking, “Am I hungry?”. That’s it. Simple question. With my clients, we use a hunger scale, where +10 is Vegas buffet-full and -10 is so hungry you’ll eat your friend. The goal is to live somewhere in the middle.
Of course, the hunger scale can be adjusted for your goal. If you’re looking for fat loss, you may choose a lower number on the scale. If you’re trying to increase muscle mass or change your body composition, it might be a little higher on the scale to account for your extra exercise and protein needs. Knowing your body type will help direct you.
And you can train your body to be hungry when you want it to be. If you fast continually, you get good at not being hungry. And if you eat every three hours, you can also train your body to be hungry every three hours.
The next piece of intuitive eating is that when you’re not hungry anymore, don’t eat. When we’re eating when we’re not hungry, it’s usually emotional. Now, that’s not a negative thing. When you go to a party and you’re excited and celebrating and eat a bit more, that’s part of life. Realize that it will happen and that's okay. If you like to celebrate and enjoy and experience life with food and drinks and you’re not willing to give that up all the time, be honest with yourself.
Sometimes and All-The-Time Foods
I don’t like to call foods bad. Instead, I refer to them as sometimes foods and all-the-time foods. Our goal is to figure out what we’re going to eat sometimes and what we’re going to eat all the time. You’re going to have to come up with that list because it’s going to be very individualized to you. What feels good in your body will be on your all-the-time list and the foods that cause you to bloat or retain water or feel low in energy will probably be on your sometimes food list.
Some people can do dairy without a problem. Others have a huge issue. That’s why it’s so important to take the time to notice how foods really feel in your bodies instead of going by what works for somebody else.
This and the hunger scale will allow you to go on vacation and not allow food to be your primary focus in ruling your life. Instead, you’ll enjoy every part of your vacation and food will just get to be there, too. We don’t get that many vacations. Why waste them worried about food? Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, and you’ll come out of that vacation just fine.
As toddlers, we are intuitive eaters. But then so much happens: society, learning, habits. But we can get back to that place. You don’t have to be confused about what your food plan is. You can decide what it is. It all goes back to your body type, goals, and lifestyle.
Think about how you want your next ten years to go. What do you want? For me, it was important that food wasn’t the number one concern in my life anymore. I wanted to eat the same meals as my family. I wanted to go on vacation without freaking out. I wanted to be in the best shape of my life without restricting.
All of that is possible and starts with knowing who you are. There is no one perfect food plan for everyone. All of us will have a slight variation that will work for us - our unique self - in the long term.