Nutrition, Fitness, and Lifestyle Change

Being effective while making changes in your nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle can be difficult. Here are ten skillful approaches to think about while working towards that change…1.  Do not rely on pre-made or generic meal plans. Meal plans, recipes and food lists can be tools for weight loss and weight maintenance. However, these are not the only tools. Unless you develop individualized meal plans, recipes and food lists for your lifestyle, the process will be very an arduous one. 2. Don’t let the latest study influence your plan: Do what works for YOU, not what a study tells you works. 3.  Stop eating less: No matter what you read, learn or hear, stop eating LESS. It does not work. Even gastric bypass surgery has been found effective in part due to the hormonal changes that occur and not due to the caloric changes made. 4.  Stop exercising more: Exercise smarter, not longer. Efficiency is the name of the game. Know which types of exercise cause cravings, intensify urges and trigger negative compensatory food seeking behavior. 5.  Stop expecting linear, predictable and consistent results: Change happens in stages and real body change will likely involve peaks, valleys, and plateaus all on your way to your goal. Remember: It’s all about taking ‘Baby Steps’. 6.  Stop looking for absolutes: There are no off-the-shelf products which will work over the long-term. The benefits will come from learning how food impacts your body specifically. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ meal plans are part of the nutrition, fitness, and health and wellness trends. 7.  Be a detective not a “dieter”: To find the formula which specifically works for you, learn about how your body reacts, know how to read the signals in your body and adjust accordingly. Hunger, energy and cravings give reliable feedback. Learning to be mindful of these sensations will help in seeing lasting change. 8. It is NOT laziness, its exhaustion: To change, we must make room for change. Researchers say self-control, just like muscle, will fatigue. Nothing can truly be done well when doing too much. Before adding, make sure to subtract. 9. Lifestyle change: To make changes to the body means replacing current behaviors. The behaviors which are not effective must change. That change must be able to be executed again and again over time. 10. It is all YOU:  It does not matter if a friend can lose weight eating fruit loops and double foam, full fat cappuccinos, that behavior doesn’t work for everyone. There is nothing fair or logical about change and what matters most is what works for YOU. Learn, practice and build mastery for what works for YOU. No matter what the latest article, professional, friend or colleague says, filter EVERYTHING through your lifestyle, your willingness for change, your personality, your behaviors and your emotional preferences. Again, it’s about taking ‘baby steps’ because progress doesn’t come from taking ‘leaps and bounds’.