The Best Diet For YOU

Ever tried overhauling your entire day of food to achieve a goal you never reached? Cutting out all carbs, gluten, processed foods to end up looking the same but feeling worse? It's because your "diet" was meant for someone else, not for you. Just because something works for someone does not mean it will work for you. And there's a few reasons why:

1. Making any changes to what you eat takes time to adjust both mentally and physically. When you drastically change everything you eat on one day in one go you may last a week before your old habits come back in. You start to feel like you're failing because you can't meet the expectations you set and you give up. Even though the expectations you set are impossible and unsustainable.
   

2. You don't even enjoy it! I know everyone says "food is fuel" blah blah blah. But we don't make it taste amazing because it makes it a better fuel, we make it taste like that because it has emotion, it gives us joy, makes us feel good both inside and out. Think of your favourite food and how good it makes you feel without even having to eat it. Eating food and being on a diet you don't enjoy is like showering with your clothes on. It doesn't feel right and it definitely doesn't make you want to do it again.

3. You do it for a fix or a solution. Thinking that once you achieve your goal you can return to normal. But what if I told you your normal IS the best diet for you? Think about what you eat in a day. Look at it as a series of choices. Sometimes you make the best choice for your goals, and sometimes you choose an option that doesn't help. You make a conscious decision to eat what you do every day, and with that comes the conscious decision whether you do it for you and your goals or because you don't want to take the responsibility for your own actions. Now I'm not saying you're being lazy or irresponsible, I'm saying that we are creatures of habit. To break those habits that don't help us towards those goals requires conscious decisions that also require a level of self discipline. And we have complete power over those decisions. So how do we break the cycle?

What am I doing each day that is preventing me from achieving my goals?

I want you to think of one thing, just one thing you're doing with your food that is preventing you from losing the weight you want, fitting into those pants/ dress, the habit that you would want to change the most. Here are some examples:

• Having 2-3 sugars in your coffee every morning.

• Not exercising the amount you told yourself you would.

• Picking an option at lunch every day that doesn't actually make you feel good.

• Binging food each night/ every weekend (we've all been there, Magnum ice cream tubs are my personal favourite).

The first thing that jumps into your mind is the best place to start. You already recognise within yourself that it's a limiting factor in achieving your goals, therefore you are more likely to change that habit. When you try and change things in your diet that you don't see as issues it demonises them instead of getting to the root of the problem. There is no such thing as a "good" or "bad" food. Just better choices and options for you and your goals. Change this one thing to a better choice. Swap sugars for stevia in your coffee, commit to just showing up to the gym the amount you promised yourself, reduce and regulate how much you eat when you binge at night instead of trying to cut it completely.

Once you've done that the next step is being conscious of your plate. What are you putting on it?Are there better options that are very similar? For Example:

• Swapping your sweet potato/ potato fries for baked sweet potato/ potato.

• Adding more vegetables instead of more carbs to your meals.

• Choosing low fat dressings/ oils over full fat.

Again, small changes are the most successful. You can always add more changes later! But you can't just change everything and expect to be able to track it and be consistent with it. With that comes anxiety and expectation, therefore no enjoyment and no understanding of your own process. You can make as many changes to your day as you want, as long as you can have the self discipline initially to keep it consistent. Which brings me to the next step.

Consistency over EVERYTHING

I can't stress this point enough. It is the factor that will allow you to make 90% of the progress in attaining your goals. In saying that you may need to make more changes in your day before you start seeing results, depending on how much your lifestyle is impacting your goals. But every step has its place, and every step has an impact. Perfection is unattainable, so don't strive for it. Strive to make the best decision for you with the things you want to change, and just focus on doing that regularly. Not all the time, because you're a human being and you have responsibilities and life can get in the way at times. But do it consistently. If you have a day you don't achieve what you set out to do pick it back up the next day, no resentment and no punishment. At the start, you will fall more often than not. But over time you will fall less and gain a greater stride in the steps of your habits and changes. These lead to bigger changes and better habits. If you want to make changes that have long lasting impacts on the life you are living and the goals you want to achieve it needs to be on your terms. It does require self discipline, it does require you to hold yourself accountable, it can be hard. But give yourself that power and responsibility. Don't just make drastic changes, and overhaul your entire life in the hopes it works this time. Don't follow what worked for someone else so you don't have to take responsibility for your own food intake and lifestyle choices. Make the changes you want to, the changes you can manage and keep consistent day in and day out. Practice and practice to make it a process you enjoy and love, all the while learning you are the only one responsible for you, and only you can make that change.

In Conclusion: This is something you can start today, and you can evolve over time in ways that work for you. Your goals and your diet aren't solutions to a problem, they are steps within a bigger journey of progressing and developing yourself. If you think that doing this one diet or changing this one thing will be a catalyst in that journey you are simply misinformed. Achievement of any goal comes from a series of changes that accumulate and develop over time. When it comes to your diet you can't make this progress if it's something you don't understand for yourself. Start with what you know and what you want to change and go from there. It may take a little longer but the return on the investment of your time and patience will benefit you for the rest of your life.