NUTRITION 101: You’re going on a diet, huh?
Diet - the kinds of foods that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
Essentially, your diet is whatever you eat on a regular basis. Now, if your answer to the question in the title of this post is “yes”, then we want to help you start your diet off successfully by explaining how to create a sustainable one. Before you read on, make a conscious effort to answer the questions in this post. It will pay off!
So, when you decided to start this journey, you may have asked a few of your friends what diet worked for them or you searched “diets” online and that’s how you ended up on this blog post. It’s good to ask questions and do your research, but be careful. The most “popular” diet on the market, or your friend’s plan, may not be the best route for you… Why??
Because you have different goals and a different lifestyle than those people. Those 2 areas create questions that you need to answer for yourself:
What are your health goals?
What lifestyle factors do you need to consider to reach those goals?
Seriously, take a second and answer them…
Why do you want to go on a diet? Is it to be healthier? If that is the answer, then define what healthier means to you.
Some want to lose weight. Others want to gain it in the form of muscle. Some pursue their peak physical condition to be the best in their sport. Others want to be in shape to really enjoy their adventurous dreams and travel the world with friends and family.
Many of us just want to feel good about what we see in the mirror. Whatever your goal is, define it and clearly write it out. We’ll talk more about goal setting in another post.
Then, there are lifestyle factors. That includes things like…
Schedule
How many times per day do you eat?
How much time do you have to prepare food?
How often do you eat out because you’re in a time crunch?
How many windows does your schedule allow you to eat food appropriately throughout the day?
Budget
How much do you spend on groceries? On eating out?
Household size
Are you living alone or with others?
Are you cooking for 1 or for 5?
Does anyone you live with have allergies?
Whether it’s immediate family, roommates, or that best friend who eats half the food out of your fridge when they come over, your relationships will impact your diet. They’ll also have an effect on the first 2 lifestyle factors mentioned above.
The list of lifestyle factors is seemingly endless, but each question you answer in this area will provide a clearer picture of what the best diet for you is. Be realistic with the goals and dietary choices you select based on your life circumstances.
Ultimately, you should adjust your diet to your lifestyle as much as possible, rather than drastically changing your life to try to maintain an unsustainable diet. Now, don’t get me wrong. You will need to make changes along the way to achieve your health goals. But making realistic, incremental changes will set you up for success.
So, you began reading this post with the goal of starting a diet. Now, you have a choice to make….
You can immediately start that cookie-cutter diet that you saw online and run the high risk of falling off early in your efforts.
OR
You can answer these questions to gain an understanding of yourself, why you’re doing this, and what works best for your lifestyle to set yourself up for success.
We can then combine that newfound understanding with concrete data, like your height, weight, age, gender, training program, and several other factors, to begin constructing a diet that truly fits you.
In the next post, we’ll be discussing how to combine your goals and raw data mentioned above to understand what to eat, how much of it to eat, and when to eat it. So, answering these questions will set you up well to really gain something from next week. But like I said… The choice is yours. Just let us know what you decide!
Perseguir la mejoria!
