What is the best diet to follow for weightloss? The conversation around weightloss is complex – “don’t eat carbs, because they’re full of sugar and make you fat”, “don’t eat fats, because they’re full of cholesterol and will give you heart disease”, “don’t eat proteins because your body finds it hard to break down and it can give you bowel cancer”. So what can we eat?
What diet plan should you follow? Paleo, Vegan, 5:2, low carb, low calorie?
Diet by definition means fasting or deprivation. So if you are talking diets you are already setting yourself up for failure. In order to succeed you must have a positive relationship with food, you need to think of it as nutrition and how you can nourish your body to help you thrive.
Now I am not a dietician or nutritionist but have been lucky enough to surround myself with some of the best in this field. And I believe we have come up with the most effective diet ever. We call it the choice diet. Once we realise we all have the ability to make good choices or bad choices, the closer we come to success. The more I let clients make their own choices and not enforce my choices, the closer they come to success.
Food has a number of roles in our body from its thermogenic properties and impact on our body composition, to biochemical make up and impact on our hormonal responses to mechanical processes and impact on digestion. We can’t ignore one aspect in order to satisfy another that is not sustainable eating.
The Rule of Three:
When a client comes to us we focus on 3 key areas around nutritional choices:
- Quality: what types of food are we eating?
- Quantity: how much food are we eating?
- Hydration: are we consuming enough water?
When we start with clients the first thing we do is sort out the quality because by doing this we often find the quantity starts to take care of itself. But you can still overeat healthy food so quantities are very important when we look at body composition and weight control. By now most people know they need to consume more water but it’s about creating strategies to make good choices a majority of the time. If we get the habits right, the results will follow.
Become aware of how your body reacts to different foods – what keeps you feeling satiated, doesn’t make you feel bloated and gives you a nice stable energy flow throughout the day? By taking responsibility for your food intake and having a little bit of time to plan, whether that be buying groceries for the week or just knowing what you can order at your next lunch meeting, you will be well on your way to better health and vitality.
