You're probably saying, "What on earth is she talking about?!? 80/20...math?!? I hate math and besides, I THOUGHT this post was going to be about nutrition!!"
It IS, and I'll be digging DEEP into nutrition. You want results?!? TRY what I'm suggesting!! What have you got to lose...other than pounds?!? Remember my other post talking about curiosity?!? You just might be pleasantly surprised. JUST DO IT!!
No, I'm not a nutritionist...nor am I a personal trainer, so why should you listen to me? Over the past few years, I've learned a thing or two about eating. In the past, I've tried Weight Watchers, The Atkins Diet, The South Beach Diet, eating less, and dare I say, Hydroxycut! Bottom line is, I was looking for a QUICK FIX to a problem I created over many years. To me, DIET was the D word, and it meant eat less and you'll lose weight. Makes sense...fewer calories...less weight to gain. Right?!? WRONG!!!
Why didn't any of the above methods work for me? I was stuck in yo-yo dieting land, but I think *I* was the yo-yo!! Why aren't they working for you? Because the truth is, you're probably not eating ENOUGH food. Stick with me on this. When you cut back on calories, your metabolism slows down. Basically, your body thinks it's in a "starvation" mode. What does it do? It starts searching for places to get the nutrients it needs...where would you go...fat or muscle? If you said muscle, you win 50,000 bonus points!! Since muscle is denser than fat, you'll see a drop in the number staring up at you from the scale. This leads you to believe that you're losing weight and are doing it the right way. Here's the kicker...your body is storing fat! Now, I don't know about you, but learning this blew me away. Additionally, because your metabolism slows down, your body doesn't know how to properly react to new foods. When you lose the weight you wanted and start eating "right" again, you begin to GAIN the weight back...and then it's HARDER to get off. Are you following me?!? So...how do you FIX this...how do you CHANGE it?!? It starts with you and your mindset. You NEED to realize that old habits may not be healthy and that NEW methods need to be tried. You need to FUEL your body and quit starving it!!!
Most people have no idea what they're eating. Well, I mean, you know that you're eating a turkey sandwich, an oreo, or a glass of milk, but have you ever analyzed your food? My suggestion is to use a free program like http://www.myfitnesspal.com where you can input your food items for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The data is immediately calculated for you, and you can easily see the amount of calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat you're taking in. If you do it throughout the day, you'll also be aware of how many calories/grams you have left in the different categories. My customers can provide me with their age, weight, height, and workout they're doing, and I can find out how many calories they should be consuming. From there, we determine what kind of "diet" we want to use. Right now, I'm eating 40% carbohydrates, 40% protein, and 20% fat. There were other times when my protein and carbohydrate percentages were changed slightly based on whether I needed more/less carbohydrates. These percentages can be changed in the program to reflect your needs. So, what does it look like? Here's a sample of my food diary:
You can see there are green areas (I still had some remaining)and others that are red (I went over my target number). By monitoring this daily, you'll begin to see patterns or trends. For me, it was a wakeup call! What I *thought* was eating well turned out to be a carbfest! There was barely any protein in my diet. So, I've learned to tweak things and for the most part can hit pretty close to my target numbers now.
Ideally, you want to eat 5 to 6 times per day. Your meals should be eaten every 2-3 hours. NOW, you're probably thinking I'm crazy! Let me ask you this...why have I lost weight and kept it off? THIS is why!!! I'm constantly eating throughout the day. My metabolism has picked up (it used to be VERY slow) because it's always working to burn the fuel I'm feeding my body. I'm eating 1800 calories daily. I took that number and divided it by 4. That works out to around 450 calories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The remaining 450 are divided among the snacks. Now, I personally didn't eat nearly enough during breakfast and was a little low at dinner, but I made them up with my snacks. If you need reminders to eat, set alerts on your cell phone! Here's my eating schedule:
7:30 - breakfast - Shakeology / banana
9:30 - snack - turkey slices/cottage cheese cup
12:00 - lunch - beef stroganoff with broccoli
3:00 - snack - almonds
5:30/6:00 - dinner - shrimp / spinach pasta / spinach
8:00 - snack - rice cakes with peanut butter
Something that I'm constantly asked is, "What can you recommend for snacks?" The truth is, that what *I* eat might NOT be something you personally would care to eat. So, instead, I share something that I've used often. It's called Michi's Ladder (http://teambeachbody.com/eat-smart/michis-ladder) and it's a life saver when out shopping. A "clean" diet would include foods from the tops two tiers, so if you want to know WHAT you should eat...stick with those levels. Print a copy and keep it with you. Then, while out at the grocery store or a restaurant, you can pull it out and make a healthier choice. Set yourself up to succeed! Put a plan into place!
I'll work on another post about simplifying nutrition, but for now, you've got plenty of information to work with. Please join my team at: http://www.malwo.com by clicking on the link "to become a club member or a free member" and I'll be assigned as your coach (if you don't already have one). Getting back to that 80/20 information. If you want to see results, it's 80% what you eat and 20% what you do...nutrition is key!!
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