If You’re Considering Resizing Your Body This Year, The Very First Thing We Need To Talk About Is…

Food.

It is the most difficult part, but also the most rewarding part of what I do with clients. Talking about food. Whether you’re overweight, under weight, obese or anything other than well fit, it is the relationship you have with food that must be addressed, first. The solution will take time but, starting the discussion is paramount.

I’ll start with me. I grew up skinny thin. When I got in high school I started training to wrestle and I worked very hard at it. But, I didn’t want to get in the gym and lift weights all day cause that’s where the jocks were and I didn’t like them any more than they liked me. I got some weights and a bench I used in my yard but because I was so small (96lbs as a Freshman) I didn’t think I could gain enough muscle, fast enough to be competitive in higher weight classes, so I focused on stamina, strength and staying down in weight by running, a lot, especially Friday and Saturday morning to ‘make weight’ for a match. Then I’d binge eat absolute garbage all weekend.

My Dad was always battling his weight, mostly losing but my grandfather was pretty thin so I figured I’d never have to worry about my weight. My Dad loved to cook…so I avoided the kitchen like the plague. I associated the love of the kitchen with being fat. I loved food, good, rich, fat food and somehow I figured and long as I just stayed out of the kitchen and stayed on the other side of the counter it would be fine.

After high school, I never had a weight problem. At 18 years old, I weighted just 118lbs. I ended up getting into sales, mostly over the phone. Wrestling was over and my work wasn’t physical at all so it was the sedentary life for me. No problem, until I was about to be a Dad, at 28. By then my non active life finally caught up with my aging metabolism and I could stand to lose a bit of weight that was starting to hang around my middle…the dreaded ‘spare tire’. I tried a diet that seemed to work and I lost weight.

Then Dad life and an even crazier work schedule. In my early 30’s I got back in the gym and I lifted hard and heavy. Gained some muscle but still ate whatever I wanted because I still loved rich foods. So I was never lean but only maybe 20lbs over weight.

Then it seemed like I just closed my eyes thru my 40’s. I started at a size 33 and by the time I was just past 50, I was just getting into my first pair of 38’s. And that was my first trigger. I went back to school, got triple certified in weight loss, diet, nutrition and fitness coaching and started my journey resizing. I’ve lost over 50lbs and into 33’s again. Not done but well on my way and helping others to do the same thing but, the key to my story is the same for every single one of my clients.

It’s all about our relationship with food.

Some of my clients are afraid to eat, afraid of food. They were so cautious when they were younger, wanting to stay thin, they literally trained themselves not to get hungry. I’m not talking about food disorders like Anorexia. They just ignored hunger so many times their bodies just quit asking so much. When they got older and their metabolism slowed, they started to gain fat. Their problem is they can’t really eat less because most days they’re eating well below what they should be in the first place. Their bodies have simply compensated and now they're storing fat even when most people who would eat this little would be losing weight.

I have other clients like me who are foodies. We LOVE food. We watch food tv because we can’t wait to try the next sauce dripping calorie bomb.

I have many other clients who fill out these spectrums, one direction or the other, but they all have the same problem. Their relationship with food wasn’t developed as a healthy part of living in the first place. Most of them will self diagnose- going to the gym like crazy doing mass cardio or reading some diet on the Internet and giving it a go. More than 90% of the time they make it even worse…except in the beginning it looks like they’re winning. They lose weight, yeah. But it’s like watching Charlie Sheen claiming Tiger Blood is working, that cocaine isn’t the problem it’s the solution. Eventually, the house of cards comes crashing down. The weight comes back, even more usually.

Nobody wants to hear about their relationship with food. We’d rather print off a meal plan, eat meals from a box in the mail and/or go to the gym and beat ourselves into submission.

But the reason I developed The Flexivore Plan? was because I did it for me first and I knew for me, the real issue was re-training my mind to embrace food instead of being afraid of it. Food. That’s where the conversation has to start. First, you have to be comfortable enough to talk openly about what you like instead of hiding them in the closet. First, you have to talk openly about your fears regarding food, we all have them.

Tell me about your issues with food- the good, the bad and the ugly. Let’s start there. Share right here.

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This is just food for thought, consume guilt free.