Every year an influx of diets and methods that will change your life arrives on the scene. We get the low carb diet one year, the no carb diet in the next. The paleo, vegan, keto, OMAD, IIFYM, intermittent fasting.
We get inundated with superfood recommendations, how one glass of wine or one piece of dark chocolate (it has to be dark) will clear up your skin and help you live longer. And we constantly become overloaded with information that increases confusion, fear, and the overwhelming feelings that cause people to never bother with their health and wellbeing in the first place—e.g., anabolic windows, insulin spiking, metabolism spiking, starvation mode.
It really is tiresome. And frustrating.
Of course, it’s understandable why people want the quick fix; the magical approach that will change their life. But yo-yoing one’s way through life never pays off.
It’s like seeing the “No Through Road” sign, yet still turning down the street, thoroughly believing that it will join the main road.
But it never does.
And you know yourself you’ll be U-turning back to the entrance, back to where you started, still cursing your partner, the GPS, or the world, and blaming everything and everyone but yourself for screwing things up.
You’ll be stuck believing that the world is against you, that your metabolism is faulty, that you’re just “big boned,” yet can’t even count on one hand the number of weeks where you have actually stuck to something. Where you haven’t faultered. Where you have actually put in the work for the goal you want so bad.
Don’t get me wrong, being committed to something is difficult. Chipping away at a goal that doesn’t always show results, is sometimes one of the hardest things to do.
But it doesn’t have to be so extreme. That is, when you are ready to dumb things down and stick to some basics. And in the realm of dieting, there are three rules that will never go out of fashion.
Rule #1: Stick to It
Something. Anything. Instead of chopping and changing, “falling off the bandwagon” every time you have a birthday dinner to go to, or believing carbs or fats or sugars are what is ruining your results, choose something and stick to it.
And do it for a week. A week where you don’t cave or find excuse after excuse to not follow the plan you want to follow.
Then do it for two weeks. Then three. Then a month. Then two months. Then three.
What you’ll find when you start sticking to a plan, when you start looking after your health and takin ownership on the journey you want to be traversing, is that you will feel better because A) you’re sticking to something, and B) you’re actually eating intelligently, thereby fueling your body correctly, thereby keeping yourself energetic, motivated, and succeeding.
Rule #2: Stop Buying/Eating the Foods You Know Don’t Help You
This is a killer for so many people. And if this is you (or your partner), you need to stop it right now.
You need to stop purchasing those chips, cookies, yoghurts, ice-creams, lollies, chocolates, muffins, cheeses. You need to stop eating out every night, drinking alcohol every weekend, having a “cheat day” every single week.
Instead, you need to start eating normal food. Remove excessive packaged foods, and introduce (or increase) foods like chicken and fish and meat and vegetables and fruits and grains and foods that don’t come with a list of ingredients you can’t even read.
Rule #3: Eat in a Calorie Deficit
No, eating carbs isn’t the problem. No, eating bread isn’t the problem. And no, eating tasty fruits like bananas or mangoes isn’t the problem either.
The real problem is simple: you eat too much for what your body needs. Plain and simple.
If you wish to learn how to eat in a calorie deficit so you finally stop complaining about how you keep gaining or maintaining weight, check out this incredibly helpful video by some dude off the Internet:
Questions? Hit me up below or send me an email.