234: Why Your Diet Isn't Working

With January being fat loss season, I'd be crazy not to talk to you about my actual true expertise. It's where I started before you ever knew me on Leveling up podcast was in the Fat loss nutrition and fitness space. So with it being that time of year where I'm getting a lot of direct questions about that, I thought, let me do another episode on this. So if you missed my episode two weeks ago, I did share an episode on fat loss as we age. So this will piggyback on that. Feel free to go back and listen to that one as well. In addition to this, they go hand in hand, but today I'm going to talk about the specific things to be on the lookout when you're looking at diet plans and when you are wondering why you can't stay or stick to a plan that you're on. These are critical things that I see in so many plans and it's why people fail and it's what sets you up for failure. So I'm going to go over those things today and then give you some alternatives, some ways that you can work around that. So number one, the first thing you want to look out for is anything that is asking you to eliminate entire food groups. That gets very dangerous for a number of reasons. A big reason it gets very dangerous is whenever you are told you cannot have something, you'll tend to focus on wanting it. It's just human nature. You're told you can't have carbs, you're told you can't have fat. Whatever it is, when you're told you can't have something specific, you'll tend to focus on it, crave it, and that creates issues. A better way to look at things is how can you focus on adding in so much more of the good that you make less room for the bad. All of my plans that I create with clients, we focus on addition, adding in more of the good, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, lean proteins, adding in so much good, good hydration that we make less room for the bad. Another reason you don't want deprivation is when you take out entire food groups. That's not the ideal healthy method. It's not something you can do for a lifestyle. And without balancing all food groups, you do create more issues. We all need carbs, protein and fat in our nutrition plan, so that's the first thing to look out for. The second thing, if you're on a plan that's asking you to do sugar free, and I don't mean eliminating sugar, but I mean sugar free, where we Want artificial sweeteners. That's another big red flag and it creates more issues. A lot of reasons artificial sweeteners aren't healthy for us. But the main one I want to speak into is when your body thinks it's getting calories, but it's not. So let's say you're having a soda, your body thinks it's getting 100, 150 calories worth of carbohydrates and sugar, but you're having a zero calorie sweetener or replacement, your body will literally look to make up for that calorie deficit. So where maybe you weren't hungry or having a craving, you drink that soda and now you all of a sudden have more cravings. That is why your body's looking to make up for that. So artificial sweeteners are. No, no. Another thing to look out on diets is anytime you are asked to be super uber restrictive, like eating all of your food in a few hours, completely eliminating different times of the day, or you can only eat at this time, be really aware of that because that's very challenging to make a lifestyle. It also sets you up for failure. And in life we need wins to keep pushing forward. When you feel empowered and like you're winning and like things you're doing are helping you and you're, you' you're going in the right direction. You are more apt to do more when you are told that you absolutely have these strict rules, like everything needs to be in this specific time window. And then you wonder why you're not motivated or you're setting yourself up for failure. That's why it's just too strict or too rigid. So you want to look for plans that work in your lifestyle. The next thing to be aware of anything that is giving you do this, do that without full explanation. Just following a plan without explanation isn't going to keep you motivated or keep you wanting to stick to. Goes back to that saying, if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a life. If you give a man a fish, he eats for the day. It's the very same thing here. It's why A big reason. When I teach nutrition or in any of my plans, there's a full education on why certain foods do certain things. If we don't have that education, it gets very hard to eat out at a restaurant or to eat out a friend's house because we don't understand why we're doing something and it makes it challenging to stick to. And the bottom line is you need to power Forward. The next thing to be aware of is if you are relying on willpower alone or motivation and you're wondering why, gosh, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just stick to it or have the willpower? I'm going to challenge you to dig a little deeper because willpower is very challenging. Most people don't have willpower, to be honest with you. What people do have that succeed is a very deep rooted why. And, and I call that a driving core motivator. When you can get to the real reason why you want something deep down, like why you truly want results on something. And it's not just surface level, like you want to get your confidence back so you can xyz, that helps you stay a lot more likely to stick to something. But when your only motivation is, wow, my dress didn't fit this morning or my jeans are too tight, and we don't go deeper into the why, it's very hard to stay committed. And the reason is, is you, in the moment of your jeans not being able to zip, you might be motivated, but what happens on the couch at night in sweatpants, you don't have that same motivation. So it's important to do that work and go deeper on the why. Another thing to look at at diets is you cannot extreme calorie restrict and keep that up. It's not safe, it's not dangerous. I mean, I'm sorry, it's not safe and it can be dangerous. And the bigger problem with that is you really set yourself up for failure because you will lose, you might lose weight quick, but it's not going to be fat. And you'll gain that back, which discourages you even further. And that's where yo yo dieting comes into place. So instead you want to look at how can I create a healthy balance where I'm losing a healthy amount of fat per week, which is genuinely about one to two pounds a week of fat, so that you can keep it off and make it a lifestyle. When you look at extreme drops, like you're losing 10 pounds in a week, 15 pounds in a week, that is not fat. It's not possible. You're also losing water, you're losing muscle, not healthy. You will gain it back. And that's why you're thinking you might be yo yo dieting. It's because you haven't been doing it the smart way, which is to lose about 1 to 2 pounds of fat loss per week, which may not sound like a lot, but over a year, that's over £100. I hope these tips were helpful. Now depending on when you are listening to this. If you're listening to it the day that I drop this episode, you still have a few days left to jump on it and get my help with this. I am opening my Total Body Thrive for a few extra days for listeners of the podcast if you want in. This is an eight week program where you do get those radical results that last for a lifetime. This is not a PDF that you download and just go and set it and you're on your own. This is a full method that you get all the help that you need that is based on those concepts I just shared. It's a lifestyle plan that works in your life. In addition to the program and the site and the community and all questions answered, you do get direct help with me because I do a live zoom with you each week with the group answering all questions and coaching you through this. If you are a candidate for that and you are interested, don't wait because this is filling up. It is actually filled. I'm opening up some spots for my leveling up listeners just for these few days, but you can check that out@total bodythrive.com once again. Total body thrive.com.