Preparing Your Foods And Reaching Your Goals

Diets don’t usually solve the most pressing challenges people have with eating better.

In my experience working with clients the last 17 years, I learned this: You want to make body transformation progress right now, without disrupting your entire life (which causes you to feel deprived, miserable or overwhelmed).

It's very common to struggle with restrictive calorie diets. This approach tells you WHAT to eat instead of teaching you how to practice eating better within the context of YOUR lifestyle.

While you may be able to get short-term results, you could actually end up regaining all the weight you lost (and more). And you begin to realize that this approach simply doesn't work in the long run.

Long term body transformation looks like this:

? losing weight (and keeping it off) you haven’t been able to shed for years.

? gaining mental confidence so you can really start living.

? learning to eat better in a way that feels easy, consistent and automatic within the context of YOUR life.

You can experience all that a healthy lifestyle has to offer, every day, for the rest of your life!

To do this, you need to get to know YOU, your situation and stay with the process long enough (consistently) to see what works!

“Done-for-you” meals and precise eating plans seem like an obvious solution to weight loss struggles.

But take a look at what happened in a recent 12-week diet study conducted by Stanford University scientists.

For the first four weeks, participants were given all of their meals and snacks—no cooking, food prep, or wondering, ‘What should I eat?’ required.

Then, for the next eight weeks, participants were on their own to plan, shop for, and cook meals that worked with the diet they were following.

And the findings:

??The participants preferred making their own meals over eating the meals that were given to them by a nutrition scientist. (In the second 8 weeks, all 42 participants actually declined the option of having their meals made for them.)

? They said they wanted expert-created shopping lists, meal ideas, and recipes, but didn’t use them.

??Even with all these resources, they ended up making only small adjustments to their normal diet.

The Bottom Line

What do most people need help with?

Building sustainable SKILLS that help them manage portion sizes, regulate their emotions (without food) and choose nutritious foods they truly enjoy (to name a few).

Because most of us have a pretty good idea of WHAT to eat. But consistently doing it? That’s the real challenge.

Mark Dilworth, PN1-NC, CDS, NMH, LWM

Certified Nutrition Coach, Dietary Strategies Specialist, Specialist In Nutrition For Metabolic Health and Lifestyle Weight Management Specialist

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